OUFL 

NORTHERN 

DOMAIN 



ALASKA 

PICTURESQUE 
HISTORIC AND 
COMMERCIAL 




Class. 
Book.. 






GoipgfrtM°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




N\I1\K AI.A-KAN .N KK DIK \M IM A N. 



Our 
nortbern Dotnaln 

ALASKA 

PICTURESQUE, HISTORIC 
AND COMMERCIAL 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED 




BOSTON 
DANA ESTES C®, COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright. 1910 
By Dana Estes & Company 



All rights reserved 



C.H.Sii 



Cni.A?GS6(-8 



"^'HOt 



■a 



r 









i nted by 
THE COLONIAL PRESS: ^ 



ndsCaCo.,Boston,U.S.A. ^^ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 



PAoa 



I. A Flouted Gift ••••...... o 

II. The Discovery of Alaska ■••..... 17 

III. The Rise of the Russian - American Company . ... 24, 

IV. The Founding of Sitka ■••.., ^ . s6 
V. Decline of the Russian - American Company .... 49 

VI. Alaska Becomes United States Territory 55 

VII. The Magic Wand of Gold ........ 70 

VIII. Outsiders and Insiders at Nome ....... 82 

IX. The Vastness of Alaska ........ 01 

X. The Northward Passage ........ loO 

XI. Wrangel and the Glaciers ........ 106 

XII. Juneau and Skagday ......... ug 

XIII. The Mighty Yukon j29 

XIV. Reindeer and Eskimos ......... 140 

XV. St. Michael's and Nome ........ 154 

XVI. Seals, Sea - Lions and Walrus jgo 



...... oix«.A J81 

XVIII. A Sound of Glaciers jog 

XIX. Summerland ••....... 209 

XX. Rosary Emeralds . . . . _ _ oin 

XXI. A Mountain of Fire ........ 225 

XXII. Our Imperial Domain ........ 234, 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGB 

Native Alaskan Needlewoman ....... Frontispiece -. 

Street Scene, Ketchikan, Alaska . . . . . . . .11 

Looking Across the Harbor from Skagway Wharves . . . .21 

Winter Dress of Alaskans. . . . . . . . . .31 

Block House, Sitka . . . . . . , . . . .42'' 

Pack Train in Box Canyon, Skagway Trail ...... 59 ^ 

Eskimo and Kayak in the Surf ......... 78 

Looking up White Pass Summit ......... 95 

Native Alaskan Ivory Worker . . . . . . . . .114 

Native Alaskan Boat Builder 131 

Unloading Freight at Nome . . . . . . . . .150 

Wild Rapids on a Mountain Stream l67 

Dawson, Panoramic View . . . . . . . . .186 

Old Russian Trading Post at Alganik 203 

A New Camp after a Gold Discovery ....... 221 

Hydraulic Mining in Alaska ......... 231- 



OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN, 



ALASKA. 



CHAPTER I. 

A FLOUTED GIFT. 

THE fairy-godmother, in the old folk-story, brings the new-born 
infant a crooked coin, even more than insignificant in appear- 
ance; but it has miraculous powers, and when put to the test, 
multiplies into a fortune. Aladdin's lamp had nothing in its external 
aspect to indicate that when rubbed it would summon the aid of the 
all-powerful Djinn to reveal unmeasured riches. Such a gift, at first 
despised and ridiculed, seemed to be the great land of Alaska, which, 
instead of consisting wholly of glaciers and icebergs, as was at first 
generally supposed from its situation in the far north, has proved to 
be an El Dorado of fabulous value. 

It is rather amusing and instructive, in view of the stream of gold 
and other precious products, pouring in an ever-increasing volume 
from Alaska's horn of plenty, to recall some of the predictions and 
comments that were made, in the newspapers and in Congress, when 
the proposed purchase of this imperial domain from Russia was under 
discussion. 

In the debate of July, 1868, the Hon. Hiram Price of Iowa, in the 
House of Representatives, after animadverting on the Hon. N. P. 
Banks's eloquent plea in favor of Alaska, said: — 

9 



10 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

" By a movement as quick and a change as sudden as ever was pro- 
duced by Aladdin's lamp, we were standing upon the margins of the 
inlets, bays, and water courses of Alaska. There the gentleman from 
Massachusetts pointed out to me the fish with which these waters 
swarm; no sir, I beg pardon, not swarm; there is no room for them 
to swarm ; they are piled up, fish upon fish, pile upon pile — solid 
columns of fish; no human arithmetic can compute their numbers. 
And, sir, such fish — shad, salmon, cod, — according to the description, 
a foot and over through the shoulders, with sides and tails to match. 
As I stood there, Mr. Chairman, listening to the gentleman from Mas- 
sachusetts, with fish to the right of me, fish to the left of me, fish all 
in front of me, rolling and tumbling, I had to acknowledge that the pic- 
ture as painted made Alaska a good countrj- for fish. ' ' He declared that 
he was almost ready to embrace " the creations of this splendid fancy," 
until, on sober second thought, stripping it of the " trimming and 
tinselry in which his imagery had clothed it," there remained " noth- 
ing but a cold, forbidding, ghastly, grinning skeleton," from which he 
" turned with horror and disgust." From all that he could learn, 
Alaska was, in the language of an impartial historian, " very moun- 
tainous and volcanic, with a climate intensely cold, and a sterile soil." 
He ended by claiming that Kussia ought to be allowed to remain in 
peaceable possession of Alaska in all her hideous proportions«and 
native cheerlessness, with her icebergs, her volcanoes, her three hun- 
dred and sixty days in the year of clouds and storms, her harbors, 
streams, Indians, and fish. 

Mr. Schenck of the House declared that he had never felt his imag- 
ination worked upon to the extent of according to the bargain that 
had been made, anything like the value which other gentlemen seemed 
to find in it. " Perhaps," he said, " if anything could reconcile my- 
self, or any man, to the acquisition of the Alaska territory, it might 
be found in the weather under which we are now sutTering, and that 
probably is a more earnest argument in its favor than almost anything 
else I can find in mv mind." That was Julv 14th, 1868. 



A FLOUTED GIFT. 13 

Mr. Williams of Pennsylvania called it " a miserable property." 
He went on, in a flow of sarcastic eloquence, which was amusing then, 
but almost pathetic now : * ' Never, indeed, in the annals of imposture, 
has anything been witnessed so reckless and audacious in the way of 
invention as the statements which have been manufactured to accom- 
plish this object. By a miracle as stupendous as that of Joshua when 
he held the sun spellbound on Gibeon and the moon in the Valley of 
Ajalon, the very laws of nature — the same to which the honorable 
Chairman so confidently refers — are not only suspended but over- 
turned at the bidding of the wizard Secretary. The pen of the mer- 
cenary scribe is enlisted to furnish material for the statesman. The 
Sybilline leaves of these oracular personages, this hireling priesthood 
of the press, descend in showers like the snowflakes that load the at- 
mosphere of this promised land. The icy barriers, before which even 
the giant power that had cleft its way through the snows of Siberia 
to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, were obliged to recoil, giving way 
at once. The frozen rivers bare their flowing bosoms to the embraces 
of a tropic sun, and the rugged and inaccessible mountains sink down 
incontinently into the verdant shore and the grassy plain. And young 
America, always susceptible, — yes, and very old America, too, listen 
and believe. Already they hear, or think they hear, the screams of 
the American eagle from the peak of St. Elias, and as their eyes are 
skilfully directed to the exiled banner of the Union drooping discon- 
solately from its staff amid the perpetual rains of Sitka, they respond 
to the stirring appeal by swearing on the altar of the god Terminus 
that it shall never go back, even though the elements in mutiny may 
wage eternal war around it and against it. 

" Nay, even the grave Chairman, to whom the nation looks for wise 
and wary counsel, transported by the glowing vision, is rapt in ecstasy 
himself, and while challenging the wild fancy that peopled Unalaska's 
shore with wolves, finds a new El Dorado among the icebergs and 
volcanoes of this new Eden, before which the riches of ancient Ophir 
and the marvels of Cathay must fade. The poet, who has license 



14 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

as the statesman has not, was true at least to the hiw of verisimilitude 
when he assigned to that savage beast a home in this new purchase 
for which he could imagine no other inhabitant. If he forgot that 
there are regions of the earth where even a wolf could not subsist 
and would disdain to live, he has atoned at least for the error of the 
naturalist in the glorious rhythm that blends so well the dismal howl 
of that animal with the sullen dash of the breakers upon that desolate 
shore. But what is there in the way of license here to compare with 
the inventive genius that has sown the gift of Ceres among the driving 
mist and the eternal snows, and with a marvellous alchemy, transmuted 
the sterile rock and the inaccessible glacier into the richest of metals 
and the most priceless of gems 1 . . . . 

" Rich as he is in elocution, the powers of language almost fail him 
in his endeavor to depict the varied and endless resources of the new 
acquisition. Without even the trouble of an exploration, he gives his 
hand and his faith implicitly to the voracious penny-a-liner, who guides 
him to the mount of vision and there unfolds to his wondering eyes 
the mysteries of this untrodden and enchanted land. He sees, not with 
the visual orb, but as Sancho saw his Mistress, by hearsay, in this 
chaos of rock and mountain and wintry flood, a boundless area of 
cultivable land that only awaits the surveyor and the plow to be 
thronged with settlers and to dimple into harvests; timber for con- 
struction and export, huge as the pines hewn on Norwegian hills, to 
make the mast of some great admiral, and as indestructible as the 
bodies of the unburied Eskimos found by the first explorers on its 
northernmost point, which laughed the worm to scorn and defied alike 
the tooth of time and of the polar bear; treasures of mineral wealth 
deep hid from mortal ejes, in beds of coal, and ores of iron, lead, copper, 
silver, and even gold, with probably platinum, and possibly diamonds; 
forests alive with fur-bearing animals just waiting to ornament the 
shoulders of some Atlantic belle ; and fishes swarming upon the coast, 
until they are crowded out of their native element and compelled to 
pasture upon the strand." 



A FLOUTED GIFT. 15 

Mr. Williams, in his eloquence, came nearer to the truth than he 
dreamed. 

On the other hand, Charles Sumner and "William H. Seward, whose 
greatest claim to immortality lies in their advocacy of purchasing 
Alaska, clearly foresaw the possibilities that would open up in the 
exploration of the vast unknown regions, which, since their day, have 
a million times justified their perspicacity. Charles Sumner, who was 
not wholly in sjinpathy, nevertheless made a great speech, which, by its 
matter of fact tone and by its overwhelming array of facts, did much 
to turn the tide in favor of this speculation. Speaking of the discovery 
of gold in the moimtains of the Stikine River, not far in the interior 
from Sitka, he said : — " Gold has been found, but not in sufficient 
quantities reasonably accessible. Nature for the present sets up ob- 
stacles ; but failure in one place will be no discouragement in another, 
especially as there is reason to believe that the mountains here contain 
a continuation of those auriferous deposits which have become so 
famous farther south." 

The peroration of his plea is well worth reading. After piling up 
his unanswerable arguments, based on a characteristically thorough 
examination of all the literature of research and discovery, he uttered 
these ringing words: — " As these extensive possessions, constituting 
a corner of the Continent, pass from the imperial Government of Rus- 
sia they will naturally receive a new name. They will be no longer 
Russian America. How shall they be called? Clearly, any name 
borrowed from classical history or from individual invention, will 
be little better than a misnomer or a nickname unworthy of such an 
occasion. Even if taken from our own history, it will be of doubtful 
taste. The name should come from the country itself. It should be 
indigenous, aboriginal, one of the autochthons of the soil. Happily, 
such a name exists, which is as proper in sound as in origin. It ap- 
pears from the report of Cook, the illustrious navigator, to whom I 
have so often referred, that the euphonious name now applied to the 
peninsula which is the continental link of the Aleutian chain, was 



16 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

the rule word used originally by the native islanders when speaking 
of the American continent in general, which they knew perfectly well 
to be a great land. It only remains that, following these natives, whose 
places are now ours, we, too, should call this great land, Alaska. . . . 
Your best work and most important endowment will be the Republican 
Government, which, looking to a long future, you will organize with 
schools free to all, and with equal laws before which every citizen will 
stand erect in the consciousness of manhood. Here will be a motive 
power without which coal itself will be insufficient. Here will be a 
source of wealth more inexhaustible than any fisheries. Bestow such 
a government and you will bestow what is better than all you can 
receive, whether quintals of fish, sands of gold, choicest fur, or most 
beautiful wing." 

Still more prophetic and eloquent were the orations of Gen. N. P. 
Banks in the House of Representatives, when he urged Congress to 
appropriate money to pay Russia for the ceded territory. 

Yet as late as November, 1877, in an article entitled " Ten Years' 
Acquaintance with Alaska," Henry W. Elliott, an attache of the Smith- 
sonian Institution, published in " Harper's Weekly " a pessimistic 
article regarding the resources of that country. Speaking of the Pur- 
chase arguments, he wrote: — " The great speech of Sumner in favor 
of the treaty, and which, in the universal ignorance of the subj5f?t 
prevailing in the American mind at the time it was delivered, was 
hailed as a masterly and truthful presentation of the case, is, in fact, 
as rich a burlesque upon the country as was Proctor Knott's ' Duluth.' 
Sumner, however, meant well, but he was easily deceived by the cunning 
advocates of the purchase." 

The truth is that although Sumner made no mention of the mar- 
vellous concentration of the fur-bearing seals in the Bering Sea, his 
perspicacity was, in many of his predictions, more than justified. In 
a dozen different industries which have sprung up with the past decade, 
the returns have many times exceeded the petty price demanded by 
Russia for this noble Empire of the North. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DISCOVERY OF ALASKA. 

TWO causes led to the discovery of the region now called Alaska ; 
the first was the search for the North-west passage, the second 
was the quest of fur-bearing animals. As early as 1648, the 
Russian Cossack navigator, Semyon Deshnef, hearing that a tribe far 
to the eastward on the Polar Ocean had plenty of ivory, sailed along 
the northern coast of Siberia, rounded Asia, and reached the Chukchi 
peninsula by the body of water now called Bering Strait. He was the 
first to discover the walrus in these waters. The first authentic men- 
tion of the American Continent was made by Peter I. Popof, who, in 
1711, learned from the wild Chukchi Indians that beyond the islands 
off Siberia lay a great land with broad rivers and inhabited by people 
who had tusks growing out of their cheeks, and tails like dogs. This 
evidently referred to the labrets worn in the face, and the wolf or 
dog tails attached to their parkas behind. 

The Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, interested in everything that 
concerned science and discovery, shortly before his death in 1725, wrote 
out instructions for his Chief Admiral, Count Feodor Apraksin, to 
cause to be built at Kamchatka, or some other convenient place, one 
or more decked vessels to explore the northerly coasts and endeavor 
to discover whether they were contiguous with America, submitting 
exact notes of whatever discoveries they should make. Vitus Bering, 
a Dane, who had shown capacity in the wars with Sweden, was ap- 
pointed to take charge of the expedition. After extreme hardships in 
crossing Siberia by land, he and his followers reached Kamchatka, and 
in boats there launched they sailed along the eastern coast of the penin- 
sula, and in 1728 discovered and named St. Lawrence Island. They 



18 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

passed through Bering Strait and proved that America and Asia were 
separate countries. 

The discovery of Alaska by an adventurer named Gvosdef, in 1731, 
stimulated to further explorations, and in 1733, Bering, under the 
patronage of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, the niece of Peter the Great, 
was once more conunissioned to take charge of an expedition from 
Kamchatka. There were long and annoying delays, but at last, in 
September, 1740, Bering, in the ship " St. Peter," accompanied by 
the ' * St. Paul ' ' under command of Lieutenant Chirikof , who had been 
with him in the first voyage, set sail. They were soon beset by winter, 
and established themselves at Avatcha, where they built a few houses 
and a church, naming the settlement after the two ships, Petropavlovsk. 
Early in the following June, they once more weighed anchor, but on 
the twentieth a gale separated the two ships. Chirikof's went to the 
eastward, and on the fifteenth of July sighted land. He sent ten men 
ashore, under command of Abraham Mikhailovich Dementief, a young 
nobleman, who, having been disappointed in love, had volunteered 
for this dangerous service. After they had been absent for five days, 
another boat was despatched with six men to look for the first party. 
Those left on the ship soon observed a black smoke rising above the 
point of land behind which the boats had disembarked. ^ 

The next morning, the anxious company on board were gladdened 
by the sight of what they thought were the two boats approaching. 
Their joy was turned to horror when it was seen that the two boats 
were filled with savages. These turned about at the sight of the ship, 
and shouting " Agai ! Agai ! " made for the shore. A gale blew up, and 
Chirikof was obliged to put out into the open sen. When the storm 
had subsided, he returned to his former anchorage, but had no means 
of reaching land. The fate of the missing men was never determined 
but it can be easily surmised. Chirikof, crippled as he was, was com- 
pelled to return to Kamchatka. His men suffered terrible hardships; 
their provisions and water were exhausted, all on board were ill with 
scurvy, and they lost altogether twenty-one men. 



THE DISCOVERY OF ALASKA. 19 

Bering, on the sixteenth of Jul.y, caught siglit of the magaiticent 
snow-clad mountain range, of which St. Elias, rising to a height of 
18,000 feet above the sea, is the crown. George Wilhelm Steller, a 
German naturalist, who accompanied the expedition and left an excel- 
lent account of what he saw, claimed to have discovered land on the 
day preceding, but his claim was ridiculed by his companions. A land- 
ing was made on what is now known as Kayak Island. After delaying 
several days, and finding a number of unoccupied Imts built of logs 
and bark and thatched with coarse grasses, together with dried salmon, 
copper implements, and other indications of former occupancy, Bering, 
without attempting to proceed farther, turned about. On his voyage 
back, he discovered and named a number of the Aleutian Islands, where 
they found friendly natives, with whom they exchanged gifts. The 
name Aleutian is supposed to have been suggested by Cape Alintorsky 
in Siberia, which, according to native tradition, was continued into a 
chain of islands stretching away toward the east. The ships were 
buffeted by territic tempests, and so many of the crew perished of 
illness and deprivations that the survivors had difficulty in navigating 
their ships back to the Asiatic coast. There they had the misfortune 
to be wrecked on a small island, which now bears the name of their 
famous commander. Here, on the eighth of December, in a hut so 
exposed to the elements that it hardly deserved to be called a shelter, 
Bering died of scurvy, after suffering unutterable agonies. His com- 
panions, after spending the winter in holes dug in the sand dunes and 
roofed with canvas, their only food sea-otters and seals, constructed 
a boat from the wreck of the " St. Peter," and managed to reach the 
mainland. 

The result of the discoveries of Bering and Chirikof was that many 
expeditions were fitted out for fishing and hunting along the American 
coast. These traders were called " promui'shleniki," the word sig- 
nifying traders or adventurers. They pushed farther and farther east- 
ward. Such were Emelian Basof , who made four consecutive voyages ; 
one of Bering's companions nam.ed Nevodchikof ; and Aleksei Belaief, 



20 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

who, in 1745, inveigled fifteen of the gentle Aleuts into a quarrel for 
the express purpose of killing them, maltreating their wives, and rob- 
bing them of their furs. Similar outrages were perpetrated by many 
others of these irresponsible and brutal adventurers. In 1759, a pro- 
mui'shleniki named Glottof discovered the large island of Unmak, and 
subsequently skirted the extensive group of islands including Una- 
laska. On account of the foxes abounding there, he called this archi- 
pelago, the Fox Islands. Glottof is reputed to have been the first to 
baptize the natives; he also furnished his government with the first 
Russian map of that region. Glottof reached the island of Kadiak 
in the autumn of 1762, and took up his quarters there for the winter. 
The natives, who had at first been very gentle and patient under the 
outrageous demands of the traders, had begun to rebel. They attacked 
Glottof 's settlement, but were repulsed by the Russians; after that 
they kept aloof and refused to trade. Later in the winter, discovering 
that the invaders were weakened by disease, they renewed their at- 
tacks and almost exterminated them. Glottof escaped only with the 
greatest diflSculty. The same year, a merchant, Druzhinin, arrived 
at Unalaska, with one hundred and fifty men, and was attacked by the 
natives, who, at a signal, arose and killed all of his followers but four, 
who happened to be absent, and were protected by a kindly Aleut. 

The treatment of the natives by the adventurers hardly corresponded 
to the wishes of the Empress Catharine II., who, in expressing her 
satisfaction at the reported subjection of the six new Aleutian Islands 
by the Cossack Vasiutin and his followers, said in her ukase to the 
Governor of Siberia: — " You must urge the promui'shleniki to treat 
the natives with kindness, and to avoid all oppression or ill treatment 
of their new brethren." She also urged the governor to glean all 
possible information regarding the country. In response to this wish, 
the Admiralty College selected two captains, Krenitsin and Leva.shef, 
who sailed from Kamchatka in 1768, and attempted to make explora- 
tions and gather scientific details about the land and the people. But 
they had difficulty with the savages, and, after losing a third of their 



THE DISCOVERY OF ALASKA. 23 

forces through scurvy and the arrows of their enemies, they returned 
to Siberia. The profits of the trading and hunting expeditions were 
very great, and there are records of more than sixty such enterprises. 
The profits were generally divided equally between the owners of the 
vessels and the crews; each sailor had one share, and the navigator 
and commanders had two each. A tenth of the whole was exacted as 
a tax by the government. 

The natives who fell into the hands of their oppressors were com- 
pelled to do the hunting and to turn over their booty, receiving as a 
reward a few cheap trinkets, or a bit of tobacco. They thus became 
practically slaves. The horrors of their condition form the dark back- 
ground of Alaskan history. The story of the revenge wreaked by the 
cruel Soloviof for the slaughter of such Russians as were killed by the 
natives, when they at last were goaded into rebellion, is only one chap- 
ter of this tale of violence. 



CHAPTER in. 

THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANT. 

A CHANGE for the better occurred when the Siberian mercliant, 
Grigor Ivanovitcli Shelikhof, recognizing that the unwise treat- 
ment of the natives was causing a diminution of the fur-prod- 
ucts, formed a partnership with two other merchants, named Golikof, 
to " sail for the Alaskan land called America and for known and un- 
known islands, to carry on the fur trade and explorations, and to 
establish friendly intercourse with the natives." 

Three galiots, bearing the extremely i:)ious names of " Three Saints," 
" Archangel Michael," and " Simeon the Friend of God, and Anna 
the Prophetess," were fitted out at Okhotsk and set sail in August, 
1783. Shelikhof and his wife, Natali, took part in the expedition. As 
usual, storms separated the vessels, but, after a year's separation, 
they brought up together in a harbor of tli» island of Kadiak. A native 
was found and treated so kindly by Shelikhof that he attached himself 
to the ship, and several times did great service in warning the Russians 
of hostile attacks. A large body of natives threatened to exterminate 
the Russians unless they immediately evacuated the island. Shelikhof 
tried to treat with them but his words had no effect, and a few nights 
later the natives made a desperate attack on the Russians, who were 
prepared for them, however, and, after a pitched battle, caused them 
to retreat. Shelikliof made up his mind that he must exterminate 
them before they secured reinforcements, and, with a picked band, sup- 
ported by two-i^ounder cannon, stormed their stronghold, which the 
natives supposed was impregnable. It was a desperate battle, but 
Shelikhof's superior skill won the victory. Many were either killed 
or drowned by leaping over the precipice into the sea. Those that 



THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANY. 25 

surrendered were converted into hunters for the Company, and their 
future good behavior secured by keeping twenty children of the most 
prominent as hostages. 

All fear of further attack being thus removed, Shelikhof proceeded 
to organize his trading and exploring enterprises. In some of these 
he met with a fair measure of success; in others, he found the natives 
hostile or suspicious. One small party established friendly relations 
with the native chief of Shuiak, the northernmost island of the Kadiak 
Archipelago. This chief proved treacherous ; he retained the trading- 
goods furnished him by Shelikhof, and also made an alliance with the 
Kenaitze Indians of Cook's Inlet. Shelikhof was obliged to administer 
a severe castigation to these natives, but he carried out his plans. An- 
other of his subordinate expeditions went to the Gulf of Chugach (now 
known as Prince William Sound) and the Copper Biver region, but 
the natives there were found to be averse to trading with the Eussians. 
Not much more "was done than to erect crosses and other insignia to 
warn explorers of other nations that the country had been taken under 
the Russian possession. In many places these notifications were es- 
tablished where Spanish and English explorers had already erected 
similar warnings. 

While Shelikhof was carrying on his active explorations, and also, 
with the aid of his wife, was making great strides in converting the 
natives to Christianity, his partner Golikof had been making a visit 
to his native town of Kursk. The Empress happened to pass through 
the town, and Golikof secured an audience with her. He showed the 
charts and plans that Shelikhof had made. She was greatly interested 
in all that she heard, and expressed a desire to see Shelikhof personally 
whenever he should be in Petersburg. 

Shelikhof, having established his little colony and provided for fur- 
ther explorations, proceeded to Okhotsk, where he laid before the Gov- 
ernor Yakoby a detailed report of his discoveries, claiming that he 
had added fifty thousand new subjects to the Empire, and asking for 
instructions as to his future course. Yakoby was greatly impressed 



26 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

by these claims, and sent despatches to the Empress. In consequence 
of what she had heard, two expeditions were ordered to be fitted out 
for further explorations in these far distant regions. One was pre- 
vented by the war between Russia and Sweden; the second was put 
Tinder the command of an Englishman by the name of Billings, who 
was instructed to pay especial attention to the American coast. This 
expedition did not sail until 1790. 

Yakoby, in his letters, declared that he deemed it sufficient to secure 
Eussia in her new i^ossessions, to place in position thirty large copper- 
plates with the Russian coat of arms, and a quantity of wooden crosses, 
that should bear inscriptions claiming the laud. He had suggestions 
to make regarding the tribute to be paid by the natives, and he craftily 
urged that as long as irresponsible traders wandered at will over the 
country, and were allowed to treat the natives as they pleased, there 
would be great in-egularities ; whereas, Shelikhof had carried on his 
enterprises with humane and patriotic principles, and had always pro- 
claimed that all he did was " in the name and for the glory of her 
Majesty, the Empress." He, therefore, ui'ged the Empress to grant 
the Company represented by Shelikhof and his partners a monopoly, 
so that " the interests of the Crown and of the new subjects would 
always be duly considered, while the lawless hordes of Siberian pro- 
mui'shleniki and convicts would be driven from the country." He 
was not particular to state that he was among those who were furnish- 
ing the additional capital needed by Shelikhof. 

The Department of Commerce, at the command of the Empress, took 
into consideration the recommendations of the Governor of Siberia and 
the petition of Shelikhof and his partner, and after declaring that 
" the prosecution of Shelikhof 's enterprise was of the highest impor- 
tance to Eussia on account of the interruption of the trade with China, 
whereby great loss was caused to all Siberia and a pernicious influence 
exerted on Eussian commerce," suggested that the firm in question 
should be granted the sum of two hundred thousand rubles for twenty 
years, without interest, and exempt from taxation. Two hundred 



THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANY. 27 

thousand rubles was not a very great sum, and it was probably granted. 
The Empress was pleased to confer upon the two merchants a sword, 
and a gold medal to be worn around the neck, with her portrait on 
one side, and a legend on the other stating that it was conferred upon 
them in consideration of their services in the discovery and settlement 
of unknown countries and the establishment of commercial intercourse 
with native tribes. 

Shelikhof, on his return to Irkutsk, immediately organized further 
exploring expeditions. One went to the Kuril Islands, and another 
to the Aleutian Islands, with instructions to effect a settlement as far 
south on the mainland as possible. In 1788, he sent his ship " Three 
Saints," under two experienced navigators, to the Gulf of Chugach, 
where they bought a quantity of sea-otter skins in exchange for a few 
needles and beads — the jjrofit, of course, being enormous. They also 
increased their influence by decorating the neighboring chiefs with 
copper and bronze medals, but it is said that their attempt to set up 
the copper tablets, asserting their claim to the land, proved abortive, 
as the natives immediately pilfered the metal. 

At Bering Bay, now called Yakutat, the head chief was presented 
with a portrait of the Grand Duke Paul Petrovtich, but the natives 
stated, a year later, that as soon as the " Three Saints " set sail, they 
burnt the grand duke's picture with gi'eat rejoicings. 

In 1786, a determined fur hunter, named Gerasim Pribilof, made 
the important discovery of the summer resort of the otary or fur-seal, 
located on a group of small islands about two hundred miles from the 
Alaskan mainland and equidistant from Unalaska and Saint Matthew 
Island. Millions of these strange and interesting animals would " haul 
out " on their rookeries on the two principal islands, Saint George and 
Saint Paul. The story told by Pribilof and his companions soon came 
to the ears of Shelikhof and made him still more desirous of securing 
a monopoly. There was only one important rival whom he had to fear, 
the other smaller companies having failed through the protection ac- 
corded to Shelikhof by the Government. The Lebedef-Lastochkin Com- 



28 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

pany had stations on both the islands and the mainland, and they em- 
ployed able navigators. Indeed, Pribilof was in their employ when 
he made his great discovery. Shelikhof, however, had bought up a 
good many shares in the rival company, and Lebedef was also a silent 
partner with Shelikhof. In spite of this mutual copartnership, actual 
hostilities were constantly breaking out between the men employed by 
these friendly rivals. It took the proportions of a civil war, and had 
a terrible efifect on the natives, who often exterminated the weaker 
faction. 

Shelikhof was shrewd enough to realize that the only hope for his 
Company was to put its Alaskan affairs under the control of a mas- 
terful spirit, and such he was fortunate enough to find in Aleksandr 
Andreyevitch Baranof, a merchant of Kargopol, who had attracted 
attention by his immense energy and success in managing his own 
affairs. He was a man of small stature but iron will, with extraordi- 
nary powers of endurance and capacity in the control of his subordi- 
nates. Baranof, at first, preferring his independence, refused Shel- 
ikhof 's offers, but after meeting with experiences similar to those 
ascribed to the Merchant of Venice, in having his caravans destroyed 
and his argosies plundered, though in his case by savage Chukchi, he 
came to terms with Shelikhof on the 18th of August, 1790, and set sail 
for Kadiak. He was furnished with detailed instructions regarding 
his dealing with the traders of other nations. 

The Russian Government had ordered the Shelikhof Company to 
prevent the seizure by foreign powers of any of the territory occu- 
pied by the Russian traders, or the lands and islands that might be 
acquired by them in the Pacific Ocean. Captain James Cook had made 
his celebrated voyage along the North American coast as far north as 
Icy Cape in Bering Strait, and had, in 1778, taken possession of various 
points on the inlet which now bears his name. Pie had spent some 
days on Unalaska. Other English explorers had followed in his wake 
and carried on their trading expeditions even to Kadiak. English 
traders had settled at Nutka on Vancouver Island, and were alert to 



THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANY. 29 

take advantage of their position. The French explorer, Comte de la 
Perouse, had, in 1785, made his celebrated voyage to the northwest 
coast, renaming Lituya Bay, — Port des Francais, — and giving his 
name to the strait which he sailed through at such peril. The Span- 
iards also had made many geographical discoveries and given names 
to various points and islands. Baranof was ordered to remove and 
destroy every vestige of these foreign claims, and to drive the English 
away from Nutka, if possible. 

His first task was the settlement of the difficulties with the two Rus- 
sian traders, Kolomin, a cruel Siberian, who was treating the natives 
atrociously, and Captain Konovalof, in the employ of the Lebedef- 
Lastochkin Company, who were at war with each other on Cook's 
Inlet. He seized them both, flogged them with the knout, put them in 
irons, and sent them to Siberia for trial; their followers he scattered 
about at the various posts, where they could not communicate with 
one another. 

He soon discovered that the site selected by Shelikhof on Kadiak 
Island was ill adapted for the larger operations which he had in view, 
and he moved his headquarters to the harbor of St. Paul, where there 
was ample anchorage for vessels, and plenty of timber for building 
purposes. This having been accomplished, Baranof despatched Cap- 
tain Bokharof, a trustworthy and skilful navigator, to make further 
explorations. Bokharof followed the coast of the mainland to the 
north, and discovered the portage route, which gives the quickest and 
safest means of communication between the Strait of Shelikhof and 
Bering Sea. He returned to St. Paul Harbor, his skin-covered boat 
heavy-laden with furs, walrus-ivory, and deerskins. He had won the 
good-will of many native tribes and their chiefs, who expressed their 
willingness to trade with the Russians. 

In the spring of 1793, Baranof set out with thirty men in two large 
skin boats, and after rounding Kenai Peninsula, entered the waters of 
Prince William Sound, where he also formed friendly compacts with 
the natives. At Nuchek Harbor he was surprised by a large force of 



30 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

Thlinkit Indians, or, as the Eussians called them, Koloshi, who almost 
accomplished their purpose of massacring the whole command. Ba- 
ranof s skill as a commander and the Russians' superiority in arms 
prevailed. The enemy retired taking their wounded and leaving 
twelve dead on the field. Two of the Russians and nine Aleuts were 
killed and almost a score were wounded. Baranof described the en- 
counter with the simplicity of the hero : — " God preserved me, though 
my shirt was pierced by several spears, and the arrows fell thick, with- 
out doing much damage. I was awakened from a sound sleep and had 
no time to dress, but as soon as I had emerged from my tent I knew 
that we should be able to beat them. ' ' 

Baranof built the first vessel to be launched in the waters of the 
northwest. Shelikhof, in the autumn of 1791, sent to Kadiak the ship 
" Northern Eagle " laden with iron, cordage, canvas, and other ship- 
building material. He put it under the charge of an English ship- 
wright, named Shields, whose strvices he engaged. Baranof selected 
Voskresensky, or Resurrection Bay, on the coast of Prince William 
Sound, for his shipyard, and there in the summer of 1794 was launched 
the two-decked three-master, the " Feniks " or " Phcenix," of one 
hundred and eighty tons capacity. She was seventy-thi-ee feet long 
and twenty-three feet beam. Yellow spruce of fine quality abounded 
on Kadiak, but as paint and tar were lacking, the " Phcenix " was 
smeared with a coating of spruce gum, ochre, and whale oil. Two 
other small vessels were also built and launched — the " Dolphin " 
and the " Olga." The " Phcenix," on its way to Kadiak, came to grief 
in a storm, and had to be towed into the harbor; but she was repaired 
and refitted, and made a memorable voyage to the Siberian coast, where 
she was received with a religious celebration worthy of the pious Shel- 
ikhof. 

The same year, the famous English explorer. Captain George Van- 
couver, appeared in those far northern waters. Baranof, following 
instructions, kept aloof from him. The Russian Government, above 
all things, desired to hide its plans from inquisitive eyes. Ban'mof 




wiNihi; i>i;h>~ or ala^Iian? 



THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANY. 33 

also was afraid lest his ship-builder, Shields, might be induced to rejoin 
his fellow-countrjTuen, 

The year 1794 saw the arrival of the first Eussian priests. Shelikhof, 
who was a zealous proselyter, had been for some years urging the Gov- 
ernment to establish a mission among the natives, and finally his pleas 
had their effect. The Archimandrite Ivasof, with seven popes and 
two laymen, arrived by way of Okhotsk, and at once began their active 
work. One priest went to Unalaska and converted and baptized nearly 
all the Aleutian tribes. Another, Father Juvenal, who went into the 
Ilyamna region, attacked the polygamous practices of the natives, and, 
arousing their enmity, was slain. A third, named Germand, estab- 
lished a school on Spruce Island in the Harbor of St. Paul, and for 
more than forty years labored faithfully, instructing the native chil- 
dren in the principles of religion and in useful pursuits. The Archi- 
mandrite, a few years later, was ordained at Irkutsk as Bishop of 
the new Eussian possessions on the Pacific. On his way back from 
Siberia, in company with a number of ecclesiastics, his ship, the " Phoe- 
nix," foundered and all were lost. 

Shelikhof also petitioned for a number of Siberian convicts to be 
sent to Alaska, together with their families, to establish an agricultural 
settlement. A company of more than two hundred were sent from 
Okhotsk, and settled in the vicinity of Yakutat; or, if they were prac- 
tical mechanics, scattered among the various stations of the Company. 

During this same year, another important event happened to the 
advantage of the Company. The Chinese Government informed the 
Governor of Siberia that the merchants of China were desirous of re- 
suming the trade which had been so long interrupted between the Eus- 
sians and themselves, and that especial concessions would be granted. 
The Chinese were particularly fond of the fur-seal skins, which they 
cured in a manner peculiar to themselves. The great increase in pro- 
duction of these, through the discovery of the Pribilof Islands, made 
it clear to Shelikhof that there was going to be a revival of that profit- 
able trade with China. He did not live to see the results that he an- 



34 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

ticipated. He died in July, 1795, having been recently ennobled by 
tlie Empress Catharine. His wife, however, remained in Siberia, and 
carried on his affairs with i^emarkable ability. She knew of his plan 
for consolidating the various companies trading in Siberia and the re- 
gions of Alaska, and aided by her son-in-law, Count Nikolai Eiaziinof, 
who occupied an influential position at Court, the charter was granted 
in 1799 by the Emperor Paul, who had at first opposed such a monop- 
oly as it created. The Shelikhof United Company now called itself 
the Russian-American Company, and secured for a period of twenty 
years full privileges on the coast of North-western America, begin- 
ning with latitude 55 degrees North, and including the chain of islands 
from Kamchatka northward to America and southward to Japan, as 
well as the exclusive right to all enterprises, whether hunting, trading, 
or building, and all new discoveries that might be made. On the other 
hand, all persons who had formerly had ships and establishments there, 
and all new comers, were strictly excluded. 

These privileges carried with them onerous obligations. The Com- 
pany was required to maintain, at its own expense, the government 
of the country, the Church establishment, the support of a strong mili- 
tary force, and magazines of provisions and ammunition to be used 
by the Government ships or armies in case they should be needed. It 
had also to establish experiment stations for agricultural settlements. 
It had no taxes to pay, but was obliged to collect duties on caravan 
tea, and it is said that these amounted in some years to not less than 
two million rubles. The Company had its own flag, and exercised 
almost imperial powers. It was managed by an administrative council 
composed of shareholders in Petersburg; there was a general office 
at Irkutsk, and a chief manager, who had to be an officer of the Imperial 
navy: this official had full jurisdiction over all offenders and criminals, 
and in case of mutiny or revolution, his powers were absolute. Sal- 
aries, except to the chiefs, were small, and as the employees were 
engaged for a term of years, and were not allowed to return in case 
they were in debt to the Company — as they usually were — the sub- 



THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANY. 35 

ordinates were in a state approaching serfdom. The natives were not 
taxed but were obliged to furnish a certain quantity of sea-otter yearly ; 
all the men of the various tribes between the ages of eighteen and fifty 
were obliged to engage in this labor. 

The shares that were put on sale in Eussia were bought up by wealthy 
nobles ; even the Emperor and other members of the Imperial family 
found it to their interest to participate in this promising investment. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE FOUNDING OF SITKA. 

BAEANOF was still engaged in extending the enterprises of the 
Company. In the year of the charter, he embarked on the brig 
" Catharine," and convoyed by a fleet of Innuit bidarkas, sailed 
to the region of Sitka, which had already been explored by Captain 
Shields. Sitka, which is situated about a hundred miles south of 
the latitude of Petersburg, seemed to him a suitable place for a per- 
manent settlement, because thither came many ships with which he 
could trade and thereby secure supplies. About six miles from the 
present town of Sitka, he began to build a fortified trading-post, with 
log-houses all surrounded by a high stockade. TVhile his men were 
busy with this work, a number of American trading-ships came into 
port, and, under Baranof 's very eyes, began to swap firearms with the 
natives in exchange for sea-otter skins. They paid no heed to Bara- 
nof 's protests, and he was obliged to content himself with forwarding 
despatches to the administrative council of the Company, asking the 
Government to put a stop to such outrages. 

As soon as the American vessels had sailed, Baranof returned to 
Kadiak, where he found alTairs in a state of demoralization : disputes 
had arisen between the officers of the Company and the clergy; dis- 
cipline had been thoroughly relaxed, and a party of the ringleaders 
were engaged in fitting out one of the Company's vessels for an inde- 
pendent cruise. Baranof immediately restored order from chaos, pun- 
ishing the chief culprits severely. A scoundrel named Larionof tried 
to assassinate Baranof, who, however, was too quick for him : he seized 
the man's hand, took away his weapon, and strangled him to death. 



THE FOUNDING OF SITKA. 37 

During Baranof's absence from Sitka, a tragic event befell. Al- 
though the site for the stronghold had been acquired by barter from 
the chief of tlie savage Koloshi, who dwelt in that region, and although 
they pretended to be friendly, they harbored hostile feelings against the 
settlers, and were on the lookout for an opportunity to exterminate 
them. One June holiday, when it was known that a large part of the 
garrison were out hunting and fishing, a band of several thousand armed 
Koloshi, assisted by allied tribes of Thlinkits, made a simultaneous 
assault on the garrison. The commander, Vasili Medvieduikof, and 
the rest of the inmates were slain at once; more than three thousand 
sea-otter skins and other property of the Company were taken from 
the warehouse and carried to the canoes which had brought a large 
number of the savages; the other houses were also looted and then 
set on fire. Three Russians and five Aleuts managed to escape. One 
of the survivors, who happened at the time to be out watching the cattle, 
afterwards described the massacre. Having secured his gun, and bid- 
den a girl employed in the yard to flee for her life, he went and hid 
in the thick underbrush, though not without an encounter with four 
Koloshi, who wrested his gun from him but did not kill him. From 
the edge of the woods, he could see the savages swarming over the 
barracks and carrying ofi their loot. He witnessed the rapid spread 
of the fire that destroyed all the buildings. 

He says : — "I threw myself down among the underbrush on the edge 
of the forest, covering myself with pieces of bark. From there I saw 
Nakvassin drop from the upper balcony and run toward the forest; 
but when nearly across the open space he fell to the ground, and four 
warriors rushed up and carried him back to the barracks on the points 
of their lances and cut off his head. Kabanof was dragged from the 
barracks into the street, where the Koloshi pierced him with their 
lances ; but how the other Russians who were there came to their end, 
I do not know. The slaughter and burning was continued by the sav- 
ages until evening, but finally I stole out among the ruins and ashes, 
and in my wanderings came across some of our cows, and saw that 



3S OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

even the poor dumb animals had not escaped the bloodthirsty fiends, 
but had spears stuck in their sides. Exercising all my strength, I was 
barely able to pull out some of the spears, when I was observed by two 
Koloshi and compelled to leave the cows to their fate, and hide again 
in the woods. 

" I passed the night not far from the ruins of the fort. In the morn- 
ing I heard the report of a cannon, and looked out of the brush but 
could see no one, and not wishing to expose myself again to further 
danger, went higher up into the mountain through the forest. While 
advancing cautiously through the woods, I met two other persons who 
were in the same plight as myself — a girl from the Chiniatz village, 
Kodiak, with an infant at her breast, and a man from the Kiliuda 
village, who had been l^t behind by the hunting party on account of 
sickness. I took them both with me to the mountain, but each night I 
went with my companions to the ruins of the fort and bewailed the 
fate of the slain. In this miserable condition we remained for a week, 
with nothing to eat and nothing but water to drink. About noon of 
the last day, we heard from the mountain two cannon-shots, which 
raised some hopes in me, and I bade my companions to follow me at 
a little distance, and then went down toward the river, through the 
woods, to hide myself near the shore, and see whether there was a ship 
in the bay. ' ' 

This proved to be an English vessel under the command of Captain 
Barber, who heard the man's shouts and sent a boat to take him aboard. 
His shouts were heard also by half a dozen of the Koloshi, who almost 
cajitured him. "When taken on board the vessel, he told the story of 
the massacre; and a boat with a load of armed men was sent to rescue 
the other survivors. They reconnoitred the ruins of the fort and 
buried the dead, all of whom they found beheaded, with one exception. 

The captain inveigled the " toyon," or native chief, Mikhail, and 
his nephew on board. He feasted them until they became intoxicated, 
and then ordered them put in irons, keeping them confined until they 
agreed to return all the prisoners taken. These included eighteen 



THE FOUNDING OF SITKA. 39 

womeu. who had been seized as they -n-ere washiog clothes at the river 
The ransom also inclnded a payment of two thousand sea-otter skins. 
Having succeeded in this " coup de main." Captain Barber set sail 
for Kadiak. where he demanded of Baranof a sum of fifty thousand 
rubles for his services in rescuing the men and women. Baranof re- 
fused to acx-ede to these exorbitant terms, and finally settled with a 
load of furs valued at a fifth of that amoimt. 

This disaster at Sitka was followed by many others, fulfilling the 
old proverb that misfortunes never come singly. One hundred and 
eighty Aleut hunters were surprised and massacred in the same vicin- 
ity. Another party of about one hundred perished by eating poisonous 
mussels: this tragedy giving the name of " Pagubleniye Prolif,'' or 
"Destruction Strait" — sometimes miscalled '"Peril Strait" — ^to 
the body of water between Baranof and Chichagof Islands, where the 
disaster occurred. Three ships loaded with provisions and stores were 
wrecked on their way to Kadiak, and the employees of the Company 
were saved from starvation only by the arrival of a vessel from Xew 
York, the cargo of which consisted chiefly of provisions. Baranof was 
glad to purchase them for twelve thousand rubles. 

A hunting-party of three hundred boats, under command of his sub- 
ordinate, Kuskof, reported engagements with considerable bodies of 
warlike natives, but he had routed them with large losses. Kuskof, as 
soon as he heard of the Sitka massacre, was eager to go and punish 
the Koloshi, but Baranof did not think his cireimistaiices at the time 
justified such an expedition. Meantime, despatches brought from the 
wrecked ships informed him of the accession of Alexander I. The 
commandant at Okhotsk ordered him to assemble all the inhabitants 
of Kadiak and the surrounding countries, and require from them the 
oath of allegiance. Baranof, unwilling that the crippled condition of 
his forces should be detected, ignored the command. This disobedience 
was reported to Irkutsk by a subordinate named Talin, who had been 
dismissed from the navy for bad conduct. When the report was brought 
to the notice of the Senate at Petersburg, it was decided that Baninof 



40 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

was not subject to orders from the local commander at Okhotsk. Talin 
was dismissed from the service, but during the two years that it took 
to carry the information to Alaska, Talin was able to do much mischief 
and cause great annoyance. 

Before the consolidation of the trading companies, permission had 
been refused regular naval officers, on leave of absence, to command 
Shelikhof's ships; consequently, the Comi^any had been obliged to de- 
pend on any chance navigator or " morekhodets " that offered his serv- 
ices. Many of them were utterly incompetent. Ivan Petrof, comment- 
ing on this state of things, says : — " This title was applied to anybody 
who had made a sea voyage, no matter in what capacity ; but they were 
generally hunters or trappers from Siberia, who had some slight experi- 
ence in flat-boatJiavigation on the rivers. They were entirely ignorant 
of nautical science and unacquainted with the use of insti'uments, rely- 
ing altogether upon landmarks to make their way from Asia to 
America. 

" The most extraordinary instances of stupidity in managing their 
vessels are related of some of these so-called navigators. Once out 
of sight of land they were lost, and compelled to trust to chance in 
hitting upon the right direction to make the land again. It was the 
practice to coast along the Kamchatka shore until nearly opposite the 
Commander Islands, and to wait for some clear day when the latter 
could be sighted ; then the crossing was made ; and, satisfied with such 
a brilliant result, the skipper would beach his craft for the remainder 
of the season, and pass the winter in killing fur-seals and sea-cows, 
and salting down the meat for his further voyage. 

" Late in the following spring, rarely before the mouth of June, 
the vessel was launched again and headed, at a venture, to the nearest 
islands of the Aleutian chain. If the captain succeeded in finding the 
land, he would proceed along the chain of islands, keei^ing a short dis- 
tance to the northward, careful never to lose sight of the mountain 
peaks. As the trapper captain, with his crew of landsmen, knew noth- 
ing of keeping his craft up to the wind, no progress was made unless 



THE FOLXDIXG OF SITKA. 43 

the •wind was absolutely favorable, and thus another season would pass 
before Atka or Unalaska Island was reached, where the craft was 
hauled up again for the winter. A teim of seven years was frequently 
consumed ia making the round trip to the American coast and back 
again to Kamchatka or Okhotsk, a voyage that at the present time a 
schooner can accomplish in about three weeks. At least seventy-five 
per cent, of all the vessels that sailed upon these voyages, from the 
discovery of the American coast to the beginning of this century, suf- 
fered wreck, and every one of these disasters could be traced to the 
ignorance both of captains and sailors." 

Beginning with 1801, capable officers were permitted to enlist in the 
service of the Company, and a vast improvement was initiated. The 
fii'st of these officers were Lieutenants Khvostof and Davidof. They 
navigated an old, leaky vessel, with a crew of landlubbers, from 
Okhotsk to Kadiak in two months. The following year, the Company 
obtained permission to forward supply ships direct from Petersburg 
to the colonies. Two ships, of not far from five hundred tons capacity, 
were purchased in London, and, under the names of the '* Xieva " 
and " Xadyezhda" (Hope), commanded respectively by Captain Lis- 
yansky and Captain Count von Krusenstem, set saU for Alaskan 
waters. The " Xieva " arrived at Kadiak early in July, 1S04, after 
a voyage lasting nearly a year. Learning that Baranof was on his way 
to Sitka, with the design of punishing the natives for their treachery, 
he resolved to join him there and assist in the revenge. 

Baranof, however, had been delayed at Takutat, where he had to 
finish the equipment of two small vessels. "Wiien he reached Sitka, 
with his little force of forty Russians and a few hundred Aleuts, with 
which to engage in battle with as many thousands of the warlike Ko- 
loshi, his feelings may be easily imagined when he discovered Lis- 
yansky's ship riding at anchor in the beautiful roadstead. 

The natives doughtily refused his demand for the restitution of the 
furs looted from his warehouse, and for hostages for future good con- 
duct. The first attack of the Russians was made against a fort built 



44 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

on the wooded lieight which overlooks Sitka. Lisyansky describes it 
as " an irregular polygon, its longest side facing the sea. It was pro- 
tected by a breastwork two logs in thickness and about sis feet high. 
Around and above it, tangled brushwood was piled. Grape-shot did 
little damage, even at the distance of a cable's length. There were 
two embrasures for cannon in the side facing the sea, and two gates 
facing the forest. Within were fourteen large huts, or, as they were 
called then and are called at the present time by the natives, ' bara- 
baras.' Judging from the quantity of provisions and domestic im- 
plements found there, it must have contained at least eight hundred 
warriors." 

The first attack made by the Eussians was repulsed. Baranof him- 
self was wounded, and eleven of his men were killed; but as the ships 
covered his retreat, he managed to save his cannon. The following 
day, Lisyansky took command; the ships approached the shore and 
bombarded the hostile fort. An envoy asking peace arrived. The 
evacuation of the fort was demanded. It being delayed, bombardment 
was renewed. In the night, after bewailing their fate, and killing their 
children and dogs, the natives deserted their stronghold, leaving the 
bodies of their dead. 

The Koloshi having beaten a retreat to Chatham Strait, Baranof 
was free to establish himself at Sitka, where, with Lisyansky 's assist- 
ance, he built the great castle that was, for so many years to come, 
to be the seat of colossal revels, unbridled luxury, and boundless hos- 
pitality. "When it was destroyed by fire, another still finer took its 
place; that again was wrecked by an earthquake, and also destroyed 
by fire. Around the castle a village grouped itself. The officials were 
housed in huge barracks, solidly built; some of them covering more 
than ten thousand square feet, and several stories in height. The 
rooms were papered, the floors were polished and covered with im- 
ported rugs, and heavy furniture brought from Petersburg gave an 
air of luxury to these quarters. Baranof himself was never more 
pleased than when congenial visitors arrived on some friendly ship. 



THE FOUNDING OF SITKA. 45 

He had a system of signal liglits flashing from the cupola of his castle, 
and beacon-fires were kindled along the shore, to pilot the way by night. 
A great banquet would test the capacities of the guests, especially in 
standing up against vast bumpers of fiery vodka and costly wines. The 
plate and glassware were of the richest description. Baranof had a 
fine library, and his walls were hung with valuable paintings. 

For a time he was obliged to submit to many humiliations at the 
hands of supercilious naval officers, who looked down upon him as 
being of inferior rank. But, in recognition of his wonderful success 
in conducting the affairs of the Company, the Emperor, at Kiazanof 's 
suggestion, conferred upon him the title of Commercial Councillor, 
and the Order of St. Anne of the third class. "When this honor came, 
he is said to have burst into tears and exclaimed : — "I am a nobleman ! 
I am the equal in position and the superior in ability of those insolent 
naval officers." Nevertheless, as long as he lived, he was having con- 
tinual difficulties with the Government officers, who would dispute his 
authority and try to undermine his power. 

Shelikhof 's son-in-law, Eiazanof, had been a passenger on the " Nad- 
yezhda," but had proceeded directly to Japan, where he was accredited 
as Ambassador to the Emperor. His mission there proved a failure, 
and he next devoted himself to regulating the affairs of the Company 
in which he had so commanding an interest. He was the first to put 
an end to the indiscriminate slaughter of the seals on the Pribilof 
Islands. It is said that two millions were taken the first year, and the 
price of seal skins fell to panic rates. In order to make arrangements 
for the regular purchase of provisions, he bought a Boston ship and 
proceeded to San Francisco Bay, which was then in the hands of the 
Spanish. It was contrary to their instructions to hold intercourse 
with foreign ships, but he overcame the scruples of the Commandant, 
whose daughter he would have married, had he not died before he 
obtained permission from the Russian Emperor. 

Eiazanof, by this visit, inaugurated trade-relations between Spain 
and the Eussian colonies. He foresaw the possibilities of the Pacific 



46 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

coast, and proposed the planting of Russian colonists on Xew Albion, 
as the region north of the San Francisco presidio was called. Realiz- 
ing how unfitted the Russians themselves were for agricultural pur- 
suits, he suggested that ' ' the patient and industrious Chinese ' ' should 
be brought over to man the plantations. This was in 1806. 

Five years later, Baranof carried out Riazanof's directions and 
sent his chief subordinate, Kuskof, to establish himself on the Cali- 
fornia coast. He bought a tract of land of the Indians at Bodega, not 
far north of San Fx-ancisco Bay. This whole coast as far as Kadiak 
was now furnishing its tribute of furs to the Russian- American Com- 
pany. Baranof engaged ' ' Yankee ' ' captains to hunt the sea-otter and 
other fur-bearing animals on shares. It is said that during one single 
year the Company's share in the profits made by these partnership 
expeditions amounted to several hundred thousand rubles. Occasion- 
ally, the Yankee skippers played sharj^ tricks on the Comi^any. Petrof 
tells of a Captain Bennett who exchanged his cargo of provisions for 
seal skins on the basis of a dollar apiece in trade, and then resold 
the skins to the Company's agent at Petropavlovsk for double that sum, 

Wlien the Directors of the Company heard of this and similar trans- 
actions, Baranof was ordered to change his policy. About the same 
time, Lazaref was despatched from Petersburg on the ship " Suvorof." 
He reached Sitka after a voyage which lasted thirteen months. Here 
a bitter controversy arose between Baranof and Lazaref, each claiming 
supreme rank. Finally Lazaref refused to carry out Baranof 's in- 
structions and set sail, followed by the old commander's anathemas 
and ineffectual cannon shots from the fortress. Lazaref had loaded 
the " Suvorof " with furs and other commodities taken in trade along 
the Pacific coast, and he brought back to Petersburg a cargo valued 
at more than a million rubles. Of course, he showed his animosity 
against Baranof by retailing all the evil stories that he had heard about 
his behavior and his untrustworthiness. Accordingly, it was decided 
to appoint a successor to the commander. 

There had been other attempts to get rid of him. Two pi'ospective 



THE FOUNDING OF SITKA. 47 

successors had died before reaching Sitka. In 1S09, two promuish- 
leniki had entered into a conspiracy to kill him. The attempt failed, 
but the anxiety which it caused Barcinof. in addition to his increasing 
disabilities, had unquestionably unstrung his mind, so long keen and 
alert. 

Washington Irving in his " Astoria " called " Count Baranhoff " 
" a rough, rugged, hospitable, hard-working old Eussian. Somewhat 
of a soldier, somewhat of a trader; above all a boon companion of 
the old roystering school, with a strong cross of the brave." 

He goes on to say : — " Mr. Hunt found this hyperborean veteran 
ensconced in a fort which crested the whole of a high rocky promontory. 
It mounted one himdred gims, large and small, and was impregnable 
to Indian attack, imaided by artillery. Here the old governor lorded 
it over sixty Eussians, who fonned the corps of the trading estab- 
lishment, besides an indefinite number of Indian hunters of the Kodiak 
tribe, who were continually coming and going, or lounging and loiter- 
ing about the fort like so many hounds round a sportsman's hunting 
quarters. Though a loose liver among his guests, the governor was 
a strict disciplinarian among his men, keeping them in perfect sub- 
jection, and having seven on guard, night and day. Besides these 
immediate serfs and dependents just mentioned, the old Eussian poten- 
tate exerted a considerable sway over a numerous and irregular class 
of maritime traders, who looked to him for aid and munitions, and 
through whom he may be said to have, in some degree, ei^en ded his 
power along the whole northwest coast. . . . 

" Over these coasting captains, as we have hinted, the veteran gov- 
ernor exerted some sort of sway; but it was of a peculiar and char- 
acteristic kind: it was the tyranny of the table. They were obliged 
to join him in his ' prosnics ' or carousals, and to drink ' potations 
pottle deep.' His carousals, too, were not of the most quiet kind, 
nor were his potations as mild as nectar. ' He is continually,' said 
Mr. Hunt, ' giving entertainments by way of parade, and if you do not 
drink raw rum and boiling punch as strong as sulphur, he will insult 



48 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

you as soon as he gets drunk, which is veiy shortly after setting down 
to table.' " 

Father Juvenal, the weak young i^riest who was murdered by the 
Indians of Ilyamna, gives in his diary far from flattering pictures 
of Baranof, whether in Church giving the responses, — singing in his 
hoarse voice, — or shouting obscene songs in the midst of a drunken 
carousal, with a woman seated on his lap. 

In 1817, Captain Hagenmeister was sent out in the ship " Suvorof " 
to supplant him. At first he did not disclose the real object of his 
visit ; but on January 11th, 1818, he abruptly produced his commission 
and claimed the command. "V^Tien he returned to Russia, he left Lieu- 
tenant Yanovsky as his representative. The fact that Yanovsky had 
married Baranof 's favorite daughter, the child of a native woman, 
did not seem to lessen the severity of the blow. He rose from a bed 
of illness, arranged his papers, and turned over to the new manager 
property far exceeding in value what the Company had expected. He 
had enjoyed unlimited opportunities to enrich himself, but whatever 
faults he had, dishonesty was not one of them. 

During the first hours of his downfall, Baranof walked alone to 
his favorite retreat — a gray flat stone standing not far from the castle, 
with a wonderfully beautiful view of the island-studded bay — and 
there where he was secure from interruption, not even his favorite 
daughter daring to approach him while he was indulging in this silent 
self-communion, he prepared himself for the inevitable. 

Eetaining little for himself, he determined to go back to Russia, 
where he had left a wife and children many years before. After bid- 
ding a tearful farewell to his old friends and associates, he sailed 
from Sitka on the ship " Kutuzof," late in November. At Batavia 
he was taken ill with malarial fever, and the day after the ship again 
sailed for Petersburg, on the sixteenth of April, 1819, he died and was 
buried in the Indian Ocean. 



CHAPTER V. 

DECLINE OF THE EUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANT. 

UNDER the direction of Lieutenant Yanovsky, further explora- 
tions of Alaska were conducted. One party surveyed the coast 
from Bristol Bay westward to the mouth of the Kuskokwim 
River and Nunivak Island; another reached the valley of the Kusko- 
kwim by an overland route ; and still another went as far south as Nor- 
ton, but missed discovering the mouth of the Yukon, — ■ or, as the Rus- 
sians called it, the " Kvikpak," — though they crossed its mouth. 

In 1820 the charter of the Russian-American Company expired, but 
was renewed with additional privileges. The profits for some years 
had been more than half a million rubles : this, in spite of maintaining 
a large and increasing fleet and a whole army of dependents, building 
Churches, and establishing schools. 

Hage aroftister's term as manager was short; he did not carry out 
his proposed plan of removing the headquai-ters from Sitka to Kadiak, 
although it would have been, in some respects, a safer and more de- 
sirable place of residence. He was succeeded in 1821 by Mikhail Ivan- 
ovitch Muraviof, under whose administration Russian America was 
made independent of Siberian jurisdiction, and the boundary was set- 
tled by treaties with England and the United States. During his 
administration also, great activity was displayed in converting the 
natives. The most zealous missionary was Ivan Veniaminof, who went 
to Unalaska iu 1824 and carried the teachings of his Church over an 
enormous region, and so successfully that within three years after his 
arrival, it was estimated that there were between ten and eleven thou- 
sand communicants, four-fifths of whom were natives. Next to Bara- 

49 



50 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

nof, Veniaminof is the most interesting of the early Russian notables 
in Alaskan history. He was the first Bishop of Alaska, and gave the 
cathedral at Sitka many precious treasures. His memoiy is every- 
where revered. Muraviof was a stern and relentless disciplinarian, 
and so intimidated the natives, that his very name was a terror among 
them for many years. He has been called " Muraviof the Butcher." 

During the administration of the Livonian Baron, Ferdinand Pet- 
rovitch von Wrangel, which lasted from 1831 to 1836, the quarrel be- 
tween the Russian- American Company and the Hudson Bay Company 
came to a crisis. The English company would have been glad to unite 
forces with the Russian competitor, but Wrangel had orders to crush 
the English and prevent their making any trading-stations on the 
Pacific Coast. He succeeded in preventing Captain Ogden from ascend- 
ing the Stakhin River, and when the Hudson Bay Company brought 
suit against the Russian-American Company for twenty-one thousand 
five hundred pounds damages, a settlement most advantageous to the 
Russian Company was effected at a conference at Hamburg. 

"VVrangel's successor, Caj^tain Kuprianof, made extensive explora- 
tions to the north, reaching, by means of bidars or skin boats sent 
out from the brig " Polypheme," as far as Point Barrow, east of 
Kotzebue Sound. 

Other explorers gave their attention to the interior. Glazunof as- 
cended the Yukon, which was then known as the Kvikpak, and was 
the first to make the portage between the Yukon and the Kuskokwim 
Rivers. Another explorer, named Rosenberg, penetrated from the 
Nugashak River to the Kuskokwim, and from there to Nulato on the 
Yukon, where he established a station which was afterwards destroyed 
by the natives. Certainly the exploits of the brave explorers sent out 
by the Russian-American Company, or by such men as Count Rum- 
yantsof, who, at his own private expense, despatched Naval Lieutenant 
Kotzebue to explore the Arctic, and whose name is deservedly attached 
to mountain, cape or island in the far north, calls for the highest ad- 
miration. Through terrible deprivations, meeting almost insuperable 



DECLINE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANY. 51 

diiSculties, and enduring horrible sufferings, these men added greatly 
to the sum of human knowledge. 

Captain Kuprianof took steps to sell the California Colony, which, 
owing to the incapacity of the Eussians as farmers, had not succeeded. 
During his administration, a destructive epidemic of smallpox broke 
out among the natives. It appeared first at Sitka, in 1836, and car- 
ried off four hundred of the Koloshi. Strangely enough, only one 
Eussian suffered from the malady, and in his ease it was not fatal. It 
spread to remote settlements. On Kadiak, seven hundred and thirty- 
six persons died. Vaccination proved efficacious where it was prac- 
tised, but many of the natives had superstitious fears of it and refused 
to submit to it. On Uualaska, Dr. Blashke, the resident physician of 
Sitka, vaccinated more than a thousand natives, and only a little more 
than ten per cent, died; whereas, in the district comprising Cook's 
Inlet, Prince William Sound, and Bristol Bay, more than a third of 
those attacked perished. 

The disease was not stamped out until 18i0, when Captain Etoliu, 
a successful explorer of the regions north of Bering Sea, succeeded 
Baron Wrangel. This new manager was confronted by serious dif- 
ficulties, owing to the immense loss in the native population and the 
consequent starvation which threatened the settlements. Etolin decided 
to concentrate the inhabitants in a few large villages, the chiefs of 
which were held responsible for securing food and dealing out the 
stores that were to be collected. 

The following year, the Eussian-American Company applied for a 
renewal of its charter, which the Government seemed in no hurry to 
grant. When it was renewed, however, it made some changes in the 
management of the Company's affairs, but the chief control was still 
vested in the hands of men selected from the na\'y. This explains the 
zeal for exploration, and the fact that the trade of the Company by 
no means kept pace with its expenses. Petrof says : — 

" After Baranof's departure, not a single practical merchant or 
business man had the management of colonial affairs, and the conse- 



52 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

quence was that the dividends diminished every year, while at the 
same time, according to the official reports to the Directors and to 
the Imperial Government, the colonies seemed to be flourishing and 
developing rapidly. Each succeeding chief manager seemed to think 
only of making the greatest display of continued explorations, erection 
of buildings, construction of ships of all sizes, and the establishment 
of industries and manufactories. 

" The shipyard at Sitka was complete with all kinds of workshops 
and magazines, even having brass and iron foundries, machine shops, 
and nautical-instrument makers. Experiments were made in the manu- 
facture of bricks, woodenware, and even woollen stuffs of material 
imported from California. For all these enterprises the skilled labor 
had to be imported from Eussia at gi'eat expense, and this circum- 
stance alone will explain the failure attending the attempts. Vast 
sums were also wasted in endeavors to extract the iron from a very 
inferior grade of ore found in various sections of the country. The 
only real adv^antage the Company ever reaped from its many workshops 
at Sitka was the manufacture of agricultural implements for the ig- 
norant and indolent rancheros of California ; thousands of plowshares 
of the very primitive pattern in use in those countries being made in 
Sitka for the California and Mexican markets. Axes, hatchets, spades 
and hoes were also turned out by the industrious workmen of the Sitka 
shipyard, while the foundry was for some time engaged in casting bells 
for the Catholic missions on the Pacific Coast. Many of these bells are 
still in existence, and bear witness to the early, though perhaps abnor- 
mal, industrial development on our northern coast." 

Some of the trade ventures proved unprofitable, but no one can ever 
tell when the reward of patient waiting is to come ; and at the break- 
ing out of the California gold fever, the Company's storehouse, which 
was packed with unsalable goods, was at the last relieved. Even the 
most shop-worn articles were sold at great profit. 

Never suspecting the incalculable riches that lay, scarcely hidden, in 
the beach-sands and the moimtain-valleys, the director despatched a 



DECLINE OF THE RUSSIAN - AMERICAN COMPANY. 53 

party of Aleuts, under command of a subordinate, to take up and work 
a claim, but the results did not justify the outlay. Not more success- 
ful was the attempt of Lieutenant Doroshin to prospect for precious 
metals in Alaska. He was an experienced mining-engineer and had 
graduated from the College of Mines. To be sure, he discovered gold 
in the vicinity of Cook's Inlet, but the labors of forty men under his 
direction produced only a few ounces of gold-dust, and he advised 
that the experiment should be discontinued. 

Doroshin was handicapped in many ways. Several years later, he 
wrote : — " The small result of my labors has cooled the ardor of the 
chief manager of the colonies for gold seeking. I do not cease to hope, 
however, that later some other engineer will be more fortunate in 
the path pointed out by me, with better means than were at my dis- 
posal. In that case, of course, nobody will think of him who first 
found gold where there were no ancient diggings, where no grains of 
gold were found in the crop of a grouse, and where the natives have 
not even a name for the precious metal." 

Coal had been discovered many years before in the southern part 
of the Kenai peninsula, but only sporadic attempts had been made to 
make use of it. Owing to the demand for it in California, a company 
was formed in San Francisco, which, in conjunction with the Eussians, 
undertook to exploit the mines. Machinery was brought around from 
the Eastern States, but the coal then worked did not meet expectations. 
The Company's ships supplemented their services by carrying ice 
from Sitka and Kadiak to San Francisco. At first this enterprise 
was profitable, the ice bringing as high as $75 a ton. 

The outbreak of the Crimean War very much limited the transactions 
of the Russian-American Company, although it entered into an agree- 
ment compact of neutrality with the Hudson Bay Company. A few of 
their ships fell into the hands of the English, the greatest loss being 
that of the " Sitka," which was just about entering the port of Kam- 
chatka, after a very successful voyage, but was brought to by a British 
cruiser and forced to surrender. The war also seriously interfered 



64 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

with the operations of the Kusso-Finland Whaling Company, which, at 
the suggestion of the chief manager, had been organized as a means of 
competing with the American whalers who penetrated Alaskan waters, 
and even landed on the Aleutian Islands to try out the blubber. These 
whalers paid no attention to the tenus of the treaty forbidding either 
English or American ships to hunt or fish within three marine leagues 
of the shore, and the Company offered to defray the expenses of a 
Russian cruiser stationed on the coast to guard it against such in- 
truders. When the estimated cost of its equipment and maintenance 
was reported to the Company, however, they decided that it was out 
of the question. 

The first Russian whaling ship, the " Suomi," was built at Abo 
in Finland, and was sent out, with a crew of thirty-six men, under a 
German captain. The whale-boats were imported from New Bedford. 
Its first voyage resulted in a profit of thirteen thousand rubles; but 
on its way home from the Hawaiian Islands, it narrowly escaped cap- 
ture at the hands of the English. Afterwards, it was blockaded at 
Bremen, and was sold for twenty-one thousand rubles. The second 
ship, the " Turko," had also a narrow escape. Under still another Ger- 
man captain, and with a crew of Finlanders, loaded with a cargo of 
goods for the Russian- American Company, it reached Sitka after a tem- 
pestuous voyage. Its first catch in Alaskan waters was very profitable. 
It imderwent the famous siege of Petropavlovsk, where the English- 
French fleet failed to reduce the town; ran the blockade, and arrived 
safely at Sitka. The third ship, the " Aian," after a fairly successful 
catch of whales, was herself caught by a British frigate, and burnt. 

Meantime, the affairs of the Russian- American Company were going 
from bad to worse. Looking back at the opportunities that were pre- 
sented, it seems amazing that with such riches in their hands, the man- 
agement should have so egregiously failed. But it is in great measure 
explained by the fact that the people in control lived so far away, while 
the chiefs sent out, one after another, were not trained in mercantile 
affairs. 



CHAPTER VI. 

ALASKA BECOMES UNITED STATES TEKRITOEY. 

THE Company tried in vain to induce the Imperial Government 
to relieve it of the expense of maintaining its authority. After 
the Crimean War, this became a practical impossibility, owing 
to the vast expenditures that had been wasted in the struggle with 
France and England. Instead of renewing the Company's charter, the 
Eussian Government, aware that it could not defend Alaska, and never 
desiring to occupy it, secretly approached the United States Govern- 
ment with an offer to sell the Russian possessions in America. This 
was first broached in 1859. In 1861 it was regarded as a certainty at 
Sitka, but the Civil War was then raging, and nothing was done about 
it. Had the Hudson Bay Company then seized its opportunity, Alaska 
would be to-day British territory. The purchase was advocated by San 
Francisco speculators, especially by the American-Russian Coal and 
Ice Company, which, being already on the scene, had good reason to 
expect fat plums as the successor to the Russian- American Company. 

In 1865, the Western Union Telegraph Company sent an expedition 
to Alaska to carry its line up to Bering Strait, where it was to be con- 
nected with Siberia by a short cable. The project was rendered need- 
less by the successful laying of the Atlantic cable, but a considerable 
amount of exploration and surveying was accomplished by such men 
as Colonel Bulkley of the United States Army, Mr. William H. Dall, 
and others, whose work contributed much to the knowledge of the 
country, and doubtless had the preponderating influence toward its 
ultimate purchase. Robert Kennicutt, who was director of the scientific 

corps of the expedition, explored the head waters of the Yukon, but 

as 



56 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

while he was at Nulato, a place of sinister memories, he died suddenly 
of heart-failure, superinduced by his exertions on the day before in 
saving the life of a Eussian whose canoe had been caught in the ice. 
He went out early in the morning, and his friends, alarmed by his long 
absence, found his body near the river. His open compass, and cal- 
culations traced in the sand, showed that he had been at work even 
to the moment of his death. William H. Dall was appointed his suc- 
cessor, and conducted investigations into the ethnology and topography 
of Alaska, and his reports have ever since been regarded as standard 
sources of information. 

In March, 1867, just before the adjourmnent of Congress, "William 
H. Seward, Secretary of State, was engaged in playing a game of whist 
with members of his family, when he was interrupted by a late call 
from Baron Stoeckl, the Eussian ambassador, who came to announce 
the arrival of a despatch from Petersburg conveying the Emperor's 
assent to the cession of Alaska to the United States. The considera- 
tion was to be "a cash payment of $7,000,000, with an additional 
$200,000 on condition that the cession should be free and unincumbered 
by any reservations, privileges, franchises or i^ossessions by any asso- 
ciated companies, corporate or incorporate, Eussian or any other." 
The game of whist was abandoned; Seward and the Ambassador col- 
lected their clerks, and before sunrise the treaty was ready for trans- 
mission to the Senate. 

Sumner said: — " The present treaty is a visible step in the occupa- 
tion of the whole North American Continent ; as such it will be recog- 
nized by the world, and accepted by the American people. But the 
treaty involves something more. By it we dismiss one more monarch 
from this continent. One by one, they have retired; first France, then 
Spain, then France again, and now Eussia — all giving way to that 
absorbing unity which is declared in the national motto, ' E pluribus 
unum.' " 

The treaty, which was adopted by the Senate, in spite of fierce oppo- 
sition and almost imiversal ridicule, was signed in the following May. 



ALASKA BECOMES UNITED STATES TERRITORY. 57 

The transfer of the sovereignty was attended by interesting formalities. 
United States troops arrived at Sitka, on the " John L. Stevens," from 
San Francisco, on the ninth of October, and found there the gunboats 
" Jamestown " and " Eesaca." On the eighteenth, the " Ossipee " 
arrived, and in the afternoon of the same day, General Jetferson C. 
Davis, at the head of two hundred and fifty men, marched up to the 
" kekur," where stood Baranof's stronghold, over which floated the 
Imperial Eagles of Russia. There he was met by General George 
Lovell Rousseau, United States Commissioner, and by Prince Mat- 
sukof, acting chief manager and representative of Russia, with his wife, 
Captain Peshchurof, and others. 

The United States fired the first guns, the Russians the second, and 
so on in an alternating salute, the echoes reverberating from the sides 
of Mount Verstovy. As the flag was lowered, the Princess burst into 
tears, and the Russians felt all the sadness that attends a failing cause. 
There is a somewhat apocryphal story told that the flag, as if reluctant 
to leave its proud eminence on the top of a lofty pine-tree staff, en- 
tangled itself in the halyards. A soldier was hoisted to the flag in 
a boatswain's chair, hastily rigged, and detaching it, dropped it to the 
ground, where it was caught on the bayonets of the Russian troops. 
Then the Stars and Stripes were hoisted to take its place, and again 
the cannon boomed from the ships in the harbor, this time the Russians 
leading in the salute. Then Captain Peshchurof, addressing General 
Rousseau, declared that by the authority of his Majesty, the Emperor 
of Russia, he transferred to the United States the territory of Alaska. 
Tlie Americans present gave three rousing cheers, and the transaction 
was done. 

Ivan Petrof says : — " The Princess Matsukof wept at the spectacle, 
and all nature seemed to keep her company, drenching to the skin all 
the participants in the ceremony. The native Indians in their canoes 
witnessed it from a distance, listening stolidly to the booming of can- 
non, and gazing with indifference upon the descending and ascending 
flags. Of the nature of the proceedings, they had a faint and imperfect 



58 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

conception, but one thing they did realize — that the country they once 
imagined their own was now being transferred to a strange people, 
by what must have appeared to them a singular ceremony. ' ' 

He also gives a lively picture of the first activities of the new pro- 
prietors : — "A number of business men had accompanied or preceded 
the commissioners of the two Governments, and the American flag was 
scarcely floating from the top of the flagstaff before new shops were 
opened, vacant lots covered with the framework of shanties, and nego- 
tiations entered into for the purchase of houses, furs, and other prop- 
erty of the old Russian Company, and in less than a week new stores 
had been erected, and two tenpin alleys, two drinking saloons, and a 
restaurant were opened. 

" Sitka, the town that for two-thirds of a centurj^ had known nothing 
beyond the dull, unchanging routine of labor, and a scanty supply of 
necessaries at prices fixed by a corporate body eight or ten thousand 
miles away, was profoundly startled even by this small ripple of inno- 
vation. To the new American domain flocked a herd of men of all 
sorts and conditions — Alaskan pioneers and squatters, and aspirants 
for political honors and emoluments in the new territory. Before the 
first sunset gun was fired, preemption stakes dotted the ground, and 
the air was full of rumors of framing a ' city charter,' creating laws 
and remunerative offices, and it was not long before an election was 
held for town officers, at which over 100 votes were polled for nearly 
as many candidates. 

' ' The Russian population looked with wonder on this new activity. 
The families of the higher officials, as well as those of the farmer and 
laboring classes, opened their houses to the newcomers with true Rus- 
sian hospitality; but, unfortunately, they did not discriminate, treat- 
ing officers, merchants and soldiers alike, and in many cases their kind- 
ness was shamefully abused. Robberies and assaults were the order 
of the day, or rather of the night, until the peaceable inhabitants were 
compelled to lock their doors at nightfall, not daring to move about 
until the bugle sounded in the morning. . . , 



ALASKA BECOMES UNITED STATES TERRITORY. CI 

" The Eussian- American Company was allowed two years in which to 
settle its affairs and to transport all the Eussian subjects who wished 
to return. For this purpose, all its employees distributed throughout 
the territory were collected at Sitka, and from the time of the transfer 
to 1869 nearly a thousand were liA^ing there; and to these between 
$40,000 and $50,000 were paid everj^ month as salaries, which, being 
regularly spent before the next pay-day, made business decidedly brisk. 
In addition to these Eussians, there were two companies of soldiers 
and a few hundred American and other ti-aders, while a man-of-war 
and a revenue cutter were always in the harbor, yielding a golden 
harvest to business men and saloon keepers." 

For Alaska, now began a tragic period that lasted for a third of a 
century, and can hardly be said, even now, to have resolved into an ideal 
condition of affairs. 

The princess of the fairy tale, whose dowry was to be imperial, was 
utterly neglected by her cruel and heedless foster-mother. Finally, 
not through any sense of justice or decency, but because of her coming 
into her own, was something done to clothe her decently and protect 
her against those who had pillaged her, and were ready to continue 
their evil practices. 

For a few years after the occupation of Alaska by the United States, 
detachments of the army were stationed at various points, but their 
duties were not specified by law. Within a month, difficulties arose 
between the garrison at Sitka and the Indians. A sentry, stationed 
near the powder-magazine, fired on natives prowling around, and 
wounded one of them. The next day their chief, in accordance with the 
Indian custom, demanded a pecuniary compensation from General 
Davis, who refused it. Thereupon, the chief retired to his village and 
raised the English flag. Davis threatened to bombard the village, and 
the Indians accordingly came to terms. 

Two years later, in January, 1869, a party of Chilkat Indians were 
at Sitka. It is said their chief was presented with several bottles of 
whiskey, which, of course, had its usual effect. It brought about a 



62 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

conflict between the Indians and tlie military. Several of the natives, 
belonging to three different tribes, were killed. They also demanded 
pa>-ment, and when it was refused, they began to make reprisals — 
life for life. Two prospectors, who had ventured into the country of 
the Kekhs, were killed. The report came that the crew of a wrecked 
schooner had been massacred. General Davis sent the " Saginaw " 
to avenge the supposed outrage. Three deserted villages were utterly 
destroyed. It was afterwards learned that the Indians, instead of 
having perpetrated any cruelty on the shipwrecked sailors, had rescued 
them and treated them kindly. After this, there were sporadic in- 
stances of hostility on the part of the Indians, generally caused by the 
misbehavior of uncontrolled adventurers — especially through the sale 
of liquor to the natives. 

The history of the United States army in Alaska is difficult to disen- 
tangle. Many writers, undoubtedly influenced by the interested criti- 
cism of those who came into conflict with its regulations, are inclined 
to blame the men for all sorts of irregularities. One writer charges the 
commander-in-chief with having furnished native chiefs with whiskey. 
William Gouverneur Morris, who was Special Agent of the Treasury 
Department in 1877, in his report to the Secretaiy, wi'ote regarding 
drunkenness : — 

" One of the direct evils of this detestable vice has been the de- 
bauchery and degradation of the native women by a licentious soldiery. 
Never particularly noted for an excess of virtue, they have become 
victims to their appetite for strong drink and inordinate lust, and they 
have fallen victims to the general contagion and ruin. I am aware 
this charge will provoke adverse criticism in certain quarters, and it 
is more particularly attributable to the years immediately succeeding 
the Eussian purchase, with the advent of our troops, than when later 
garrisoned. But successful contradiction is invited. The facts are too 
naked to bear the light of investigation." 

On the other hand, General A. W. Greely, in his admirable handbook 
on Alaska, says : — 



ALASKA BECOMES UNITED STATES TERRITORY. 63 

" The activity of the army in carrj'ing out its orders elicited bitter 
criticism. Reporting on the atTairs at the Seal Islands, prior to the 
lease of the Alaska Commercial Company, it incurred enmity by offi- 
cially stating that the Pribilof natives were suffering ' enslavement 
and robbery by an unscrupulous ring of speculators. ' As Indian wars 
gave local traders patronage and contracts, the tendencies to adjust 
troubles peacefully with the natives were viewed askant as unmilitaiy 
and unbusinesslike. To stimulate industry among the natives, it was 
recommended that Indians be hired to cut wood, which resulted in 
attacks from interested contractors. The army's insistence that 
Alaska was an Indian country, where neither firearms nor liquor could 
be imported, was bitterly fought by traders and politicians before the 
department, and it was years before the army's point of view was 
sustained by Congress and the courts. . . . 

" Finally — happy day for the service, though not for the territory 
^ the army sailed away from Alaska, after, as we are told by a well- 
known writer, a service not highly creditable. This local judgment was 
natural, since the business methods of many of the early Alaskan cap- 
tains of industry did not accord with the army ideals as to probity and 
propriety. 

" The aiTuy's sins of omission and commission were not specified, 
but what it did may be stated. It had brought the Indians into a state 
of submission and peace — its military diity. Moreover, it had fed the 
starving, cared for the suffering, and nursed the sick; it had largely 
suppressed smuggling and illegal trade in arms and liquor; it had 
discouraged corrupt business methods, and protested against the en- 
slavement and robbery of natives ; it had vainly besought civil govern- 
ment and open day schools; finally, it had fostered morality by relig- 
ious teaching of children, established the first Protestant Church in 
Alaska, and by its initiative, led the Christian people of the United 
States to extend a helping hand to the native of Alaska. These deeds 
are not strictly military duties, and while they are extra-legal acts 



64 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

without warrant of law, tliey were justified by the law of emergency, 
and impelled by the obligation of our higher moral nature." 

The withdrawal of the troops from Alaska was recommended by 
General McDowell, who considered that it was in the interest of econ- 
omy. He felt that the acquisition of such a detached territory was a 
detriment to the United States; he regarded it as of little value, and 
he would even have given it away for nothing to any country that would 
burden itself with its acceptance. Although he acknowledged that the 
" dozen or more whites and several hundred scrawny half-breeds who 
were there at the time of the purchase " ought fairly to be protected, 
he thought that thi-ee companies would be sufficient to enforce the 
authority of the Government, for he did not believe that there was any 
especial danger to fear from the Indians more than from the whites 
toward one another. 

There was certainly little to fear from the natives as long as they 
were held in awe by a show of military force, but as soon as the troops 
were withdrawn, an entirely different condition obtained. Mr. Morris 
wrote : — " The Russians exercised over the inhabitants of Alaska 
despotic sway, and held them in absolute subjection. They treated 
them as brutes, and flogged them unmercifully for theft and petty mis- 
demeanors. They punished crime promptly with severe corporal chas- 
tisement or imprisonment, and regarded the Indians as not more than 
one degree removed from dumb beasts. They held the power of life 
and death over their subjects. They had over two thousand soldiers, 
employees, and retainers ready to do the bidding of the supreme local 
authority. Ships of war were always at hand to bombard the villages 
into submission. The people were thus completely at the mercy of their 
rulers. 

" When the sale to the United States took place, the forts were 
garrisoned with federal soldiers, new posts were located and built, and 
for years the country was under strict military rule. The Indians were 
taught several severe lessons by the soldiery and the gimboats, and 
they continued, to all intents and purposes, in their condition of serf- 



ALASKA BECOMES UNITED STATES TERRITORY. 65 

dom until the country was formally abandoned by the War Department, 
and subsequently transferred to the sole control of the Treasury. 

" Suddenly they awoke to the Imowledge that they were free men; 
that as far as outward appearances were concerned, there was no power 
or authority to interfere with their acts. They saw the outward 
change of things, and that the pomp and panoply of war had departed. 
They beheld the white man, Boston man and King George man, black 
man, yellow man. Chinaman, Indian, Aleut Eskimo, and men of all 
colors, nationality and nativity, all associating together upon the com- 
mon terms of sweet republican simplicity. There was no authority at 
hand to punish the evil doer, no power to redress savage enormities." 

Mr. Morris went on to relate the result of an attempt to land some 
Chinese at Sitka. It is interesting as showing how the natives antici- 
pated the objection of the whole Pacific coast to such rivalry. He had 
taken passage on the " California," intending to pay a visit to some 
distant fisheries. He says : — 

' ' I found on board the whole outfit and paraphernalia of the cannery 
intended by Mr. Hunter to be established at Sitka. He had some white 
employees, and eighteen Chinamen, who were hired exclusively to man- 
ufacture the cans. Upon reaching Sitka, as usual, the whole tribe, more 
or less, were foimd congregated on the wharf. As soon as the China- 
men were descried, a general howl arose, and the wildest excitement 
was manifested. Before the lines were made fast, runners started for 
the village, and the whole beach suddenly became in instant commotion. 
Old and young, lame, halt and blind, all started pell-mell for the ' Hea- 
then Chinese.' 

" Annah Hoots, the war chief, made a most inflammatory speech 
to the young bucks, to the effect that the Chinamen should not be per- 
mitted to land. Sitka Jack was present as a quiet spectator, seemingly 
not interested in the proceedings, but I could see he was taking every- 
thing in, and kept quiet in order to be more respected as the row pro- 
gressed. 

" Annah Hoots could not speak Chinook, so Mr. Keen had to first 



66 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

translate my words, and those of ^Ir. Hunter, into that language, to 
Jack, who subsequently repeated them to Annah Hoots in his own 
tongue. This took up much time, but the Indians, instead of calming 
down, became more and more excited. The situation was critical, and 
I firmly believe, had the Chinamen landed before a proper understand- 
ing was had, every man of them would have been ruthlessly murdered, 
and God only knows, when the sharks had tasted blood, where it would 
have ended." 

It was finally made plain to the Indians, who really were very desir- 
ous of having the cannery established, that the Chinamen were not 
there to invade their privileges, that the plan was to buy all the fish 
of the Indians, that the Chinamen were to be sent away as soon as they 
Lad finished making the tin cans. Mr. Morris concludes his story : — 

" Mr. Keen very adroitly impressed upon those present the folly of 
their course, and I am satisfied it was owing a great deal to the tact and 
judgment displayed by him that we succeeded as well as we did. I 
had but little to say, only to remind them that the ' man-of-war ' was 
not far off, lying at Wrangell, and if they wanted a little gunneiy prac- 
tice, they should be speedily entertained. 

" After a long powwow, a calm succeeded the storm; good humor 
as suddenly prevailed as their angry passions had become inflamed, 
and order reigned in Warsaw. 

" In a very short time, as many Indians as could be profitably set 
to woi'k were hired by Mr. Hunter to discharge his material. The 
Chinamen landed in perfect security, walked up town, hired a cabin 
from one of the tribe, purchased wood, and by nightfall were snugly 
domiciled, with half a dozen dusky klootchmeu or squaws squatted on 
the floor, and enjoying their fish and rice. 

" Thus ended what might have proved a very serious affair. But 
it only goes to show how utterly helpless are the white population when 
the anger of the natives is aroused." 

The very next year, 1878, there being not even a revenue cutter in 
the harbor of Sitka, the Indians began to behave very insolently. They 



ALASKA BECOMES UNITED STATES TERRITORY. 67 

defaced the graves in the Russian cemetery, pulled down stockades, 
and committed other outrages. The cause of the trouble is said to have 
been the refusal of Colonel Ball, collector of customs at Sitka, to pay 
six thousand blankets as indemnity for the lives of six Kake-se-tee men 
employed as sealers on the wrecked schooner " San Diego." The chief 
of the tribe then demanded six white men's lives, and when that also 
was refused, he prepared to attack the settlement. The Russian women 
and children were sent to the home of the priest ; the Americans were 
housed in the custom house. The men were armed and prepared to 
sell their lives dearly. Annah Hoots took the side of the Americans, 
and went out with some of his clan to meet the attacking party. An 
engagement took place. 

Before Kath-le-an, who went off for reenforcements, returned, the 
British man-of-war " Osprey " arrived in Sitka and furnished the 
inhabitants protection. The fact that American citizens had been 
obliged to appeal for aid to the soldiers of another nation was mortify- 
ing, and having been severely criticized by the press of the country, 
led to the station of a United States war-vessel in the harbor of Sitka. 
All authorities agree as to the shameful neglect of Alaska and its 
inhabitants, both native and immigrant, by the United States after 
the country had been adopted. There were no courts for the settlement 
of lawsuits, no laws which could be invoked; there was no jurisdiction 
to decide title to lands; any man preempting a holding, and making 
expensive improvements, was likely to be ousted on the strength of 
a ruling by the Secretary of State that ' ' such claims and settlements 
are not only without the sanction of law, but are in direct violation 
of the pi'ovisions of the laws of Congress ai^plicable to the public do- 
main secured to the United States by any treaty made with a foreign 
nation; and if deemed necessary and advisable, military force may 
be used to remove the intruders." No patent could be obtained to 
mining, milling, or lumbering properties. No provision was made for 
the conveyance of real estate, and no arrangements for any records. 
No mortgages could be made. A man dying in Alaska could not dis- 



68 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

pose of his property there by will. There were no probate courts or 
judges. It was said that " a man might be murdered in Alaska, his 
will be forged, and his estate scattered to the four winds, and there 
would be no power to give redress." No debts could be collected. 
There were no mail facilities. 

In such a condition of lawlessness, it is no wonder that a writer like 
General Greely declared that " civil conditions after the departure of 
the army can not be recounted without a sense of shame. A pande- 
moniima of drunkenness, disorder, property destruction and personal 
violence obtained at Sitka, which eventuated in murder, followed by 
a threatened Indian uprising, and frantic appeals for protection, which 
was temporarily accorded by a British man-of-war." Nor is it any 
wonder that Mr. Dall should call Alaska " a country where no man 
could make a legal will, own a homestead or transfer it, or so much 
as cut wood for his fire without defying a Congressional prohibition; 
where polygamy and slavery, and the lynching of whites prevailed, and 
no legal authority to stay or punish criminals." 

Attempts were made to induce Congress to act, but, apparently, no 
one had sujfficient interest or eloquence to melt the indifference. In 
August, 1878, the " San Francisco Chronicle," after telling some of 
the outrageous acts perpetrated in Alaska, within three hundred yards 
of the seat of United States authority, said : — " It is a national shame 
and disgrace that such a condition of lawlessness should be siiffered to 
exist in a Territoiy of the United States, and Congress can not under- 
take a more creditable work of legislation than providing a government 
for the people of that outlying territory of our common country." 

In October, 1877, I. C. Dennis, the alert and courageous collector 
of customs at Fort Wrangel, sent in a petition signed by many resi- 
dents, and accompanied by a dignified letter of protest. He said : — 

" This petition is not our first effort in striving to be recognized 
by the Government as a people having rights worthy of consideration. 
We have petitioned and repetitioned to the heads at Washington to 
do something for us, and thus far our petitions have accomplished 



ALASKA BECOMES UNITED STATES TERRITORY. 69 

nothing; hence we try again, and onr prayer is that the present Con- 
gress will enact a law whereby whites and Indians in Alaska may 
obtain justice. We, as American citizens, claim an inalienable right 
that we are entitled to protection in life and property. Ten years have 
elapsed since the acquisition by our Government of this country, and 
during that time the Government has neither encouraged nor sanc- 
tioned the development of its resources. Nothing has been done toward 
improving the condition of its inhabitants, either intellectually or mor- 
ally. All that has been done has had a tendency to stagnate our com- 
merce, impede enterprise, and debase and demoralize the native inhab- 
itants. ' ' 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MAGIC WAND OF GOLD. 

FEO]\I the first appointmeut, in 1868, of treasury officials to look 
after customs receipts, it was evident that the new region was 
going to pay handsomely as an investment. The Alaska Com- 
mercial Company, which succeeded the Russian-American Company, 
assumed the lease of the Pribilof Islands, and, in 1869, agreed to jjay 
a tax on seal skins and an annual rental. The amounts paid by this 
company alone, up to June, 1876, amounted to nearly two millions 
of dollars. But this large return did not awaken Congress. That was 
effected only by the discovery of gold, in ever increasing quantities. 

In 1884, the laws of Oregon were extended to Alaska; a governor 
was appointed; also commissioners, and district courts were estab- 
lished; that is to say, these improvements existed on paper; the means 
for carrying them out was not provided. Not until 1899, when the gold 
production alone had risen to almost six million dollars a year, did 
Congress grant Alaska its first penal code, and a code of criminal pro- 
cedure. The following year it provided a civil government, made the 
Territory a civil and judicial district, and moved the capital from Sitka 
I to Juneau. The powers of the governor were enlarged; provision was 
made for caring for the insane; district courts were established for 
three districts; some attempts were made to settle the land question, 
and to provide for secondary education. In 1906, when the gold pro- 
duction reached the amount of more than twent3'-two millions, Alaska 
was finally recognized as a Territory entitled to representation in 
Congress, but it had no legislative body, and still depends on Congress 
for all law and legislation. 



THE MAGIC WAND OF GOLD. 71 

It is certainly a romance of history, that this once despised land, 
which sensible men proposed to call " Walrussia " and " Icebergia," 
should, within less than tweutj^ years, have added to the resources of 
the world in gold, one hundred and forty-two millions, and nearly 
forty millions in seal skins ; while the grand total from furs, fisheries, 
and minerals, from 1868 to 1908, amounted to three hundred and 
twenty-seven million, five hundred and fifty-three thousand, six hun- 
dred and thirty-seven dollars ; to say nothing of a constantly growing 
import trade in coal, lumber, hardware and machinery, provisions, 
liquors and the like, which amounted to nearly sixty millions of dollars 
in the last four years. 

Is it not strange, that in view of all this, in the very latest authori- 
tative book on Alaska, the author should be compelled to make this 
arraignment of Congress : — 

" Judicial provisions are still inadequate to the needs of the country. 
In default of a supreme territorial court, appeals necessarily go to 
the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, causing seri- 
ous delays and enhanced expenses. The Aleutian Islands are practi- 
cally without courts, and the enormous area of the third judicial dis- 
trict — the Tanana and Yukon valleys — overtaxes the judge, delays 
trials, and enormously increases costs. Minor cases are tried before 
United States commissioners — stationed at about forty points — who 
are appointed and are removable by the district judges. The power 
of the commissioners is great, as they are committing magistrates, can 
try civil cases involving values to one thousand dollars, and criminal 
cases of certain classes, where not exceeding a year's imprisonment 
may be imposed. They are also empowered to perform almost every 
kind of judicial act pertaining to their own localities." 

This El Dorado of the north has a hundred fold justified the pre- 
dictions of Sumner and Seward. Had men of equal foresight and 
ability been in Congress at the time of the so-called Oregon compromise 
treaty, British Columbia might have been retained by the United 
States, and the whole Pacific coast from Southern California to Bering 



72 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

Strait would have been an integral part of the United States. But 
even granting that the claims of the United States were justified, and 
that the whole disputed territory was ours, one need hardly go so far 
as to call it an " infamous " treaty. The country was better governed 
by Canada than it would have been had the United States taken pos- 
session of it, and the power and wealth of a friendly neighboring 
country is probably as advantageous to us as if we owned it. 

The Alaska purchase gave the United States a strip of land, ten 
marine leagues in width, from the Portland Canal, that is to say, the 
southern limit of Alaska, to the vicinity of Mount St. Elias. After 
the discovery of gold in the Klondike, the Canadians put forth the 
claim that the so-called ' ' lisiere ' ' should be measured from the general 
direction of the coast, and not from the head of the various inlets. 
This question came up during the session of the Joint High Commis- 
sion on the settlement of pelagic fur sealing, and the British and 
Canadian members suggested that the United States should transfer 
to Canada, Pyramid Harbor, the best on that coast, and a strip of land 
across the " lisiere," thus giving a desirable route to the Yukon. The 
question came up again in 1903, and the majority of the Commissioners 
decided that the Canadians had no right to the waters of any of the 
inlets, and that the original treaty between Russia and Great Britain 
meant that the strip transferred to the United States was intended to 
separate the bays, ports, inlets, and waters of the Pacific, north of 
British Columbia, from the British possessions. 

Had the United States Congress realized that climatic conditions 
in the far northwest corresponded generally to those in the northwest 
of Europe, that the influence of the warm Kuro Siwo, or Japan current, 
is much the same on the coast of British Columbia and of Alaska as 
that of the Gulf Stream is on France and England, there might have 
been more interest felt in those distant regions. 

The first gold production from Alaska, of any account, was extracted 
from placers at Windham Bay and Powers Creek, north of Fort Wran- 
gel. Miners, who had been disappointed in the newly discovered Cas- 



THE MAGIC WAND OF GOLD. 73 

siar miaes, went prospecting and took out about forty tliousand dol- 
lars' worth, in 1870. Ten years later, Joe Juneau and Eicliard Harris 
were sent by N. A. Fuller of Sitka to investigate the coastal belt be- 
tween Windham Bay and Sullivan Island in Southeastern Alaska. By 
the middle of August they reached Gold Creek, and found rich gravels 
and quartz containing free gold. From ledges which they investigated, 
they brought away nearly half a ton of ore, and staking six placer 
claims and a dozen and more quartz claims for their employers and 
themselves, they I'eturned with their prize to Sitka in November. In 
spite of approaching winter, a stampede of excited miners followed. 
Many locations were made, and this was the beginning of the present 
capital of Alaska. The following year, the " Treadwell " and other 
paying mines were located, and the town had a permanent population. 
Its first name was Eockwell, afterwards Harrisburg, but the seventy- 
two miners who held a meeting in December, 1881, voted to call it 
Juneau, in honor of the elder of the two discoverers, and the district 
was called after Harris. In two years' time, Juneau was the mining 
centre of Alaska. 

The famous Paris lode, on Douglas Island, was transferred to John 
Treadwell by its original discoverer for the sum of five dollars. Before 
the new owner could establish his rights to hard-rock mining, placer- 
miners, who disputed them, had washed out several thousand dollars' 
worth of free gold. Many of them made handsome returns with an 
ordinary shovel and sluice-box. 

The ore was of not very high grade, and a number of stamps were 
erected, at large expense, and never worked. Treadwell, however, as- 
sociated with himself San Francisco capitalists, and, after obtaining 
what was regarded as sufficient ore to warrant the expenditure, a mill 
of one hundred and twenty stamps was erected in 1887. The returns 
from the Treadwell properties had amounted to not less than twenty- 
four million dollars in 1903. That was exclusive of returns from other 
mines in the same belt. 

The most exciting and dramatic episode in the history of Alaska 



74 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

was the discovery of gold on the shores of that desolate far northern 
district separating Bering Sea from the Arctic Ocean, and now named 
Seward Peninsula, in honor of the great Secretary of State. Mr. 
Alfred H. Brooks, in his interesting sketch of the mining industry of 
the Seward Peninsula, says : — 

" A decade ago, Seward Peninsula was little more than a barren 
waste, unpeopled except for a few hundred Eskimos and a score of 
white men, whereas it is now the scene of intense commercial acti\ity, 
supporting a pennanent population of three or four thousand people, 
which in summer is more than doubled. Then, the igloo of the Eskimos 
and a mission were the only permanent habitations ; now, a well-built 
town, with all the adjuncts of ciAalization, looks out on Bering Sea. 
and a dozen smaller settlements are scattered through the peninsula. 
This region, which then produced nothing except a few furs, now in- 
creases the wealth of the world annually by nearly eight million dollars. 
A decade ago. \h(^ only communication with the civilized world was 
through the annual visit of the Arctic whaling fleet and the revenue 
cutter ; now, a score of ocean liners ply between Nome and Puget Sound 
during the summer months, and even in winter a weekly mail seiwice 
is maintained by dog teams. Moreover, military telegraph lines, cables 
and wireless systems, and a private telephone system, keep all parts 
of the peninsula in close touch with the outer world. Eailways, con- 
necting some of the inland mining centres with tide water, traverse 
regions which a few years ago were almost unlvnown to white men." 
The first survey of the coast line of the Seward Peninsula was made 
I by Captain Cook in 1778. Russians naturally first encountered this 
region because its westernmost point. Cape Prince of Wales, lies almost 
within sight of Siberia. Their first trading-post was established on 
St. Michael's Island in 18.35, but little was done toward exploring the 
interior until thirty years later, when Baron von Bendeleben, in search- 
ing for a practical telegraph route, ascended the Niukluk River, crossed 
the portage to the Kruzganiepa and reached Port Clarence, where the 
whaling fleet had its summer rendezvous. According to "William H. 



THE MAGIC WAND OF GOLD. 75 

Libby, who was a member of this expedition, Baron von Bendeleben 
found alluvial gold on the Niukluk Eiver, but little importance was 
attributed to this discovery. In 1881, John C Green, with a party 
of natives, traced the source of the leaden bullets that were in use in 
the eastern i^art of the peninsula. He followed up the river that emp- 
ties into Golofuin Bay, and there located the mine of Galena, and or- 
ganized a company to exploit it, uuder the title of the Alaska Gold 
and Silver, Milling and Trading Company. Some ore was shipped, 
but the mine is said never to have paid its expenses. 

An employee of the company, named Sanderson, found alluvial gold 
on the Niukluk in 1892; natives also had reported its presence in the 
Xome region. Even when the luring wealth of the Klondike gold 
placers drew men by the tens of thousands to the interior of Alaska, 
and bands of prospectors, enduring every kind of hardship, were 
searching all the tributaries of the mightj' Yukon, the rmnors of gold 
on the Seward Peninsula had not as yet spread beyond its confines. 

Prospectors, who had failed, gradually drifted into this region. 
About fifteen hundred men tried their fortune in the region of Kotze- 
bue Sound, north of the peninsula, and failing, made their way to 
John Dexter 's trading post on Golofnin Bay. Dexter had taught some 
of the natives how to wash out a pan of dirt, and an Eskimo, named 
Tom Guarick, while on a fishing or hunting trip, in Augiist, 1897, 
brought back a half ounce of gold dust which he had found on Ophir 
Creek. In the following September, Daniel B. Libby, who had been 
a member of the Bendeleben expedition of 1866, and three other men, 
who had been sent by San Francisco capitalists to try their luck in 
" grub-staking," landed at Golofnin Bay and saw this gold. They 
engaged the Eskimo, Tom Guarick. as a gTiide, and he led them to the 
creek, where they found that his discovery was no dream. They, and 
other adventurers, spent months in prospecting, and in April of the 
next year called a " miners' meeting and organized the ' Discovery 
District,' " and elected a recorder; all in accordance with the estab- 
lished custom in such cases. Although the miners were ill-equipped 



76 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

for tlieir work, they managed to make sluice-boxes from the spruce 
timber which the region jDrovided, and these pioneers, who may have 
numbered two or three hundred men, took out during the first season 
perhaps one hundred thousand dollars' worth of the precious metal. 
But the news of it did not excite interest even at St. Michael's, only 
a hundred miles away — a fact explained by Mr. Alfred H. Brooks, 
who was there at the time, for the two-fold reason that " the first 
Alaskan public had become tired of unfounded rumors of rich dis- 
coveries, and, second, the excavations on Ophir Creek had not, by any 
means, gone far enough to prove the great richness of its gravels." 

It ha\dng been reported that a government reindeer -hunter had dis- 
covered coarse gold on the Sinuk River, which is one of the lai'gest 
of the southern watersheds of the peninsula, four men started out in 
a small boat, and were storm-bound near what is now the town of Nome. 
They found specimens of fine and even coarse gold on the bar of Snake 
Eiver, and on what was afterwards called Snake Creek. This did not 
satisfy them, and they proceeded to Sinuk, there finding nothing. So 
all of them returned to Golofnin Bay. J. J. Brynteson, one of the 
party, a native of Sweden, and an experienced coal and iron miner, 
who had come to Alaska to prospect for coal, was not satisfied with 
the hasty survey of the Snake Eiver district, and in September, with 
two other men, he quietly set out for a closer investigation. His two 
companions were a fellow Swede, Erik 0. Lindblom, a tailor by pro- 
fession, who had been lured to Kotzebue Sound by fabulous reports 
of gold there; and Jafet Lindeberg, a native of Norway, who had 
come to Alaska to help Dr. Sheldon Jackson in procuring reindeer. 
Lindeberg gives a simple and graphic account of the world-famous 
discovery which he and his two companions made : — 

" TVe three men met by chance at Council City, in August, 1898," 
lie says in a letter to Mr. F. L. Hess of the Government Survey, " and 
after prospecting around in that district for some time and staking 
claims, formed a prospecting companionship, and decided to prospect 
over a wider range of territory. Even at this early date, the Council 



THE MAGIC WAND OF GOLD. 79 

City District was overrun by stampeders, and staked to the mountain 
tops ; so we proceeded to Golofnin Bay, and taking a large open boat 
and an outfit of provisions, on September 11, 1898, started up the coast 
toward Port Clarence, stopi:)ing at the various rivers to prospect on 
the way, in which we found signs of gold but not in paying quantities, 
and finally arrived at what is now known as the town of Nome. Fi^om 
there we proceeded up Snake Eiver, which we named, and camped at 
the mouth of Glacier Creek, prospecting as we went along. The first 
encouraging signs of gold we found on the banks of Snake Eiver were 
at about the place where Lane's pumping plant is now located. After 
locating our camp as before mentioned we proceeded to prospect along 
the tributaries of Snake Eiver, which tributaries we named as follows : 
Anvil Creek (taking the name from an anxdl-shaped rock which stands 
on the mountain on the east side of tlie creek). Snow Gulch, Glacier 
Creek, Eock Creek, and Dry Creek, in all of which we found gold in 
paying quantities, and pi'oceeded to locate claims, first on Am'il Creek, 
because we found better prospects in that creek than in the others, and 
where we located the ' discovery claim ' in the name of us three jointly. 
In addition to this, each man staked a separate claim in his own name 
on the creek. This was the universal custom in Alaska, as it was con- 
ceded that the discoverer was entitled to a discovery claim and one 
other. After locating on Anvil Creek, claims were staked on Snow 
Gulch, Dry Creek, and Eock Creek, after which we returned to Golof- 
nin Bay and reported the discovery. 

" It was then decided to form a mining district, so we three original 
discoverers organized a party, taking with us Dr. A. IST. Kittleson, 
G. 'SV. Price, P. H. Anderson, and a few others, again proceeded to 
Nome in a small schooner which we chartered at Golofnin Bay, pur- 
chasing as many provisions as we could carry on the boat, and on our 
arrival the Cape Nome mining district was organized, and Dr. A. N. 
Kittleson elected the first recorder. Eules were formulated, after 
which the party prospected and staked claims, finally returning to 
Golofnin Bay for winter quarters. The news spread like wildfire, and 



80 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

soon a wild stampede was made to the new diggings from Council City, 
St. Michael, and the far-off Yukon. 

" At this period very few mining men were in the country, the new- 
comers in many instances being from every trade known. The con- 
sequence of this was soon well known; a few men with a smattering 
of education gave their own interpretation to the mining laws, hence 
jumping mining claims soon became an active industr5\ Especially 
from Council City came the jumpers, who were the original men John 
Dexter, by an Eskimo, had guided to the first discovery of gold on 
the Seward Peninsula. They were angry to think that they had 
not been taken in at the beginning, so a few of them promptly jumped 
nearly every claim on Anvil Creek, although there was an abundance 
of vacant and unlocated ground left which has since proved to be more 
valuable than the original claims located by us and our second party 
who helped us to form the district. This jumping, or relocating of 
claims by the parties above named, poisoned the minds of all the new- 
comers against eveiy original locator of mining claims, and as a. con- 
sequence every original claim was relocated by from one to a dozen 
different parties. 

" At that time L. B. Shepard was United States commissioner at 
St. Michael, and in no case did a jumper have a chance to profit by 
his villainy, if Judge Shepard could prevent it. Another strong factor 
for good government at St. Michael and vicinity was Capt. E. S. 
Walker, of the United States Army. With exceptionally good judg- 
ment and a fearless attitude he held the lawless element in check, and 
great credit should be given him. 

" In the early months of 1899 we hauled supplies to the creeks, and 
as soon as the thaw came began active mining on Snow Gulch and on 
Anvil Creek. Soon a large crowd flocked to Nome, which was then 
known as Anvil City. Among this crowd was a large element of law- 
less men who soon joined forces with the Coiincil City jumpers, and 
every effort was made by them to create trouble. Secret meetings 
were held and a plan fonnulatwl whereby arrangements were made to 



THE MAGIC WAND OF GOLD. 81 

call a mass meeting of miners, and at this meeting declare all the acts 
of the original miners' meeting that organized the district invalid, and 
to throw open all claims for relocation. This nefarious scheme leaked 
out, and word was sent to Captain Walker at St. Michael, who promptly 
dispatched Lieutenant Spaulding with a detachment of troops to Nome. 
A few days after their arrival the projected mass meeting was called. 
Here the agreed-on resolutions were offered, which, if passed, would 
have created bloody riot. Lieutenant Spaulding dispersed the meeting, 
receiving the thanks of the entire mass of law-abiding citizens of Nome 
and vicinity for this act, . . . and had it not been for the military, 
who proved themselves to be the trae men to the American Govern- 
ment, much riot and bloodshed would have resulted from the conduct 
of the aforementioned parties." 

The vanguard of prospectors, arriving too late to do any mining, 
spent their energies in staking claims, using a power of attorney for 
such friends as they could call to mind. In this way, though the mining 
laws prescribed the limits of claims, forty men preempted an average 
of nearly two hundred acres apiece. Occasionally, rich finds were 
made. One nugget taken out from Anvil Creek weighed one hundred 
and eight-two ounces, and brought three thousand two hundred and 
eighty-five dollars. 

■ The nearest post office was one hundred miles away, across Norton 
Sound, and there were no mails after the winter season began. But 
before the ice broke, rumor had winged its way up the Yukon to Daw- 
son, and when June came there was a population of some four hundred, 
living in tents and driftwood shanties. Steamers reaching Seattle 
during the summer spread the news, and started a fresh stampede. 
The thousands who reached Nome from the States, and from the upper 
reaches of the Yukon, found themselves frozen out; or, so, at least, 
they thought; for they did not attempt to locate new placer grounds. 



CHAPTER Vin. 

OUTSIDERS AND INSIDERS AT NOME. 

MR. ALFRED H. BROOKS describes the exciting period that 
followed : — " Meanwhile, in the early summer, there was any- 
thing but a contented community at Nome. The newcomers 
had found the whole region covered with location notices and very 
little mining being done. The i^rofessional claim stakers had followed 
their usual practice of blanketing the creeks with location notices, 
under powers of attoi*ney, and then holding many claims without doing 
any prospecting, in the hope of being able to take advantage of any 
discoveries made by the labors of others. In the early part of July 
probably less than seven hundred men were actually engaged in mining, 
while upward of a thousand were idle, witli neither i^rosi^ect of em- 
ployment as miners nor opportunity to prosj^ect in the district. It 
should be remembered that at that time gold had been found in only 
a very small area adjacent to Anvil Creek. These idle men believed 
that many of the locations were illegal, as they unquestionably were 
under a strict inteq^retation of the statutes, for as the law requires 
an actual discovery of gold on each claim it is obvious that a man who 
staked twenty to thirty claims in a few days could not have detenuined 
the presence of gold in them. It was also charged that many claims 
had been located by aliens and were therefore not legal preemptions. 
Under these conditions it is not to be wondered that an era of ' claim 
jumping ' began, during which practically every property of any pro- 
spective value was restaked. It was then not uncommon to find a claim 
comer marked by half a dozen stakes, each of which represented a 
different claimant. 

82 



OUTSIDERS AND INSIDERS AT NOME. 83 

" The nearest United States commissioner was at St. Michael, and 
there was therefore practically no means of enforcing civil law. In 
fact, there were no representatives of the Government at Nome except 
an officer and a small detachment of soldiers which had been sent over 
from the army post at St. Michael in the spring. On the commandant 
of this handful of soldiers rested the responsibility of maintaining law 
and order among a thousand discouraged and angry men, a task made 
all the more difficult because he was without any actual legal authority. 
He deserves credit for meeting the situation as far as it lay in his 
power by patrolling property to which there were rival claimants and 
by attempting to settle the constantly rising disputes. Discontent was 
rife, and matters went from bad to worse. July 10 a so-called ' miners' 
meeting ' was called for the purpose of discussing the situation, and 
a resolution was there presented setting forth the grievances of those 
who believed that the claim locations had not been made in accordance 
with the United States statutes. "While it must be admitted that the 
unlimited staking was undoubtedly illegal, yet this meeting was mainly 
attended by those who, for one reason or another, had not succeeded 
in getting hold of placer claims. . . . 

" This meeting, though no doubt tending to increase the dissatis- 
faction, was entirely within the legal rights of the individuals who 
believed that they had been wronged. Therefore the peremptory dis- 
persing of the crowd attendant at the meeting by the commandant of 
the troops was a high-handed proceeding, entirely unwarranted either 
in law or equity. The tension grew day by day, and conflicts between 
rival claim owners became not infrequent. ' ' 

The military authorities had been sent over to Nome from St. Mi- 
chael's, at the request of Dr. A. N. Kittleson, the recorder of the dis- 
trict, who reported that the original " stakers," while attempting to 
work their claims, ' ' were obliged to stand over them with guns all the 
time to prevent them from being overrun by parties of gamblers, pro- 
fessional jumpers, and other riffraff." 

The outsiders demanded that the original claims, which had been 



84 OUR XORTHERX DOMAIN. 

laid out thirteen hundred and twenty by six hundred and sixty feet, 
according to the statute, should be reduced to five hundred feet in 
length, and they proposed to do so by force. At the miners' meeting, 
a resolution was introduced declaring all locations void, and it was 
arranged that as soon as it was passed, the men who had been stationed 
on Anvil ]\Iountain should l)e notified by a bonfire at Nome. They 
could then rush down and restake the claims on Anvil Creek. The 
lieutenant and two of his men, who were stationed on the platfonn, 
ordered that the resolution should be withdrawn within two minutes. 
This was done. But, nevertheless, many of the claims were jumped, 
and gave rise to long litigation. The Company is said to have spent 
more than two hundred thousand dollars in lawj-ers' and court fees 
to retain its property. 

Mr. Brooks continues the story : — ■ " The situation was suddenly 
relieved in an unexpected manner. It was accidentally discovered that 
the beach sands were rich in gold. It appears that the beach placers 
were found almost simultaneously by a soldier of the barracks and 
John Hummel, an old Idaho prospector who was too sick to leave the 
coast. Within a few days the mutterings of discontent were almost 
silenced because it was found that good wages could be made with 
rockers on the beach. All the idle men went to work as fast as they 
could obtain implements. As it gradually became known that the beach 
sands for several miles were gold bearing and could be made to yield 
from $20 to $100 a day to the man, a veritable fi-enzy seized the people 
of Nome. A large part of the population went to work with shovels 
and rockers. During the height of the excitement it is estimated that 
there were 2,000 men engaged in beach mining. The yield of the beach 
placers is estimated at more than $1,000,000, and this was practically 
all taken out with hand rockers in less than two months. 

" There was one legal complication relative to beach mining which 
threatened to be serious, but ended rather ludicrously. Previous to 
the discovery of the beach gold many so-called * tundra claims ' had 
been staked, which stretched inland from the ocean. A group of these, 



OUTSIDERS AND INSIDERS AT NOME. 85 

including the ricliest beach deposits, had been segregated and passed 
into the control of one company. When beach mining began this com- 
pany claimed that it owned the beach and warned off all trespassers 
unless they paid a royaltj' of 50 cents a day for the privilege of mining 
along the water front. Most of the miners, however, contended that 
a 60-foot strip from high water was public property and paid no heed 
to the warning against trespassing. The company thereupon appealed 
to the commandant of the troops, and he warned off all beach miners. 
The order was not obeyed, and he finally arrested about three hundred 
men. At this time the situation reached the point of absurdity. There 
being no civil magistrate at hand before whom these men could be 
tried, no building in which they could be confined, nor any funds from 
which they oould be supported while awaiting trial, the perplexed 
officer was forced to discharge all his prisoners, who promptly returned 
to their rockers on the beach. Later decisions of the Land Office have 
not upheld the claims of this company to the gold in the beach, for a 
sixty-foot strip of the beach has remained open for mining to all 
comers." 

The town on the beach was first called Anvil City; during the sum- 
mer of 1899, it was renamed Nome, possibly from the Eskimo word 
" Kinome," signifying " I don't know; " and its population of more 
than three thousand was sheltered in such shacks as could be secured. 
Lumber at one hundred and fifty dollars a thousand made frame houses 
luxuries for only the very prosperous. Coal at one hundred dollars 
a ton was not in the reach of all. The driftwood on the beach was 
husbanded as if it were gold. The tents, shacks and cabins stretched 
along a muddy street for a mile, flanked by the treeless Siberian tun- 
dra, and facing the wild surf of the cold, shallow sea. 

Corner lots, with titles as uncertain as the shifting sands, were sold 
as high as ten thousand dollars. The population met and elected a 
Mayor and Town Council, and by common consent, this City Govern- 
ment, though without definite legal authority, made and enforced suit- 
able ordinances. A Fire Department and Police Department were 



86 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

organized; the Government established a Post OfBce; and the " Nome 
News," the first newspaper, began publication. Wages were paid as 
high as two dollars an hour. Though there were dozens of saloons 
and gambling-houses, where many a successful adventurer spent at 
night all that he had got during the day, still the condition of affairs 
seemed amply to justify General Greely's assertion " that as a whole, 
the inhabitants of Alaska are the most law-abiding body of men " that 
could be found. There was a great deal of illness from the effects of 
exposure, and especially from an epidemic of typhoid fever caused by 
the use of the surface water of the tundra. 

The result of the excitement aroused by the aiTival at Seattle of some 
three million dollars' worth of gold is well described by Mr. Brooks: — 
*' Professional promoters and stock jobbers were not backward in 
taking advantage of this excitement, and there was the usual crop of 
flamboj^ant prospectuses. Scores of companies were incoi'porated to 
mine gold at Nome and much stock was sold. Though not a few of 
these ventures were intended to be legitimate enterprises, practically 
all of them were doomed to failure because of the complete ignorance 
on the part of many of the promoters of the character of the deposits, 
suitable methods of mining, and general commercial conditions. 
Beach-mining enterprises were the favorite because of the supposed 
richness of the placers, and especially because no capital was required 
to i^urchase claims. The almost incredible record of the first year's 
beach mining appealed to the popular mind, and its interest was main- 
tained through the newspapers and through transportation and mining 
companies' circulars, which published the most preposterous state- 
ments. Not a few so-called mining experts asserted that the gold 
in the beach was inexhaustible because the supply was constantly re- 
newed by the waves from the ocean bottom. It was easy to main- 
tain that, if a man with a rocker could make $20 a day on the beach, 
a plant which could handle twenty times as much material would yield 
untold wealth. There was a flood of gold-saving devices, varying from 
a patent gold pan hung on a pivot and turned by a crank to complex 



OUTSIDERS AND INSIDERS AT NOME. 87 

aggregates of wheels, pumps, sieves, and belts, which required a 100- 
horsepower engine for their operation. 

' ' ' The golden sands of Nome ' was the slogan which inspired thou- 
sands to engage passage for the El Dorado months in advance of the 
sailings. Reaching Nome was far easier than going to the Klondike, 
for the gold seeker could be landed at his destination fi-om an ocean 
steamer. Here there was no winnowing of the persevering and enter- 
prising from the shiftless and indolent as at the Chilkoot Pass (the 
gateway of the Klondike). In consequence, the crowd of men that 
reached Nome were less well fitted for frontier life than those who 
went to Dawson. 

" In 1900 the ice on Bering Sea broke early, and some small vessels 
skirting the shoreward side of the ice floes dropi^ed anchor at Nome 
the latter part of May, but the large steamers did not arrive until the 
middle of Jime. By July 1 upward of 50 vessels had discharged pas- 
sengers and freight on the beach. It is estimated that the first and 
second sailings brought over 20,000 people to the peninsula. There 
was then a solid row of tents stretching along five miles of the beach, 
and the water front was piled high with freight of all kinds. The 
newcomers found little to encourage them. Those that had wintered 
in the peninsula had industriously extended their stakes so that a man 
could travel for days and hardly be out of sight of a location notice. 
To add to the discouragement and confusion, smallpox was introduced 
from one of the vessels, and had it not been for the prompt action of 
Capt. D. H. Jarvis, of the Revenue-Cutter Service, it would have be- 
come a serious epidemic. The inexperienced men who landed at Nome, 
not finding the El Dorado their fancies had painted, were loud in their 
denunciation of the region. Many in the course of a few days' tramp- 
ing of the beach became self-stj^led experts on placer mining and stren- 
uously announced that the auriferous gravels of the i^eninsula had 
practically been exhausted. 

" During the month of July every conceivable kind of gold-saving 
appliance was installed on the shore, but few except those of simplest 



88 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

design paid even running expenses. Nevertheless there can be no ques- 
tion that a strong company controlling a considerable strip of the 
beach could by the use of steam shovels have profitably e.xtracted 
■what gold had been left in the sands. But under the conditions 
of public ownership of the beach, if values were found in any given 
locality, men swarmed in with rockers and quickly worked it out. 
This made it impossible to extract the beach gold at a profit by 
other than light equipments readily movable from one rich spot to 
another. 

" Probably the most ill-conceived enterprises were those planned to 
dredge gold under the sea. Though the upper layer of these sands is 
more or less auriferous, the difficulties of excavation are such as to 
make it improbable that it can be profitably mined. The severe storms 
and lack of shelter prevent the use of dredges, except possibly during 
one month in the year. Many of these dredging schemes were based 
on a theory (held by some who were entirely ig-norant of the origin 
of the beach gold and who refused to be instructed) that the auriferous 
sands are swept in from the sea. ... On August 9 a severe south- 
westerly storm practically demolished the more elaborate appliances 
for gold saving and strewed the beach for miles with debris. This 
ended beach mining for that year except where the simplest apparatus 
was in use." 

The enormous amount of litigation, caused by jumping of claims 
and the actions of so-called " pencil and hatchet men," who located 
claims, not for legitimate mining but for speculative puqjoses, finally 
induced the Government to form a new judicial district, and appoint 
a Federal Judge. This court, however, proved to be corrupt ; among 
its questionable acts was the placing of receivers over valuable prop- 
erty, " from which they extracted gold, in spite of the fact that they 
were without bond, and that the rightful owners had no check on the 
amount of gold being taken out." 

This distrust of the judiciary, so well-founded, kept capital from 
investing in large enterprises, and the influx of thousands of inexperi- 



OUTSIDERS AND INSIDERS AT NOME. 89 

enced men naturally led to tremendous suffering and disappoint- 
ment. 

Time, however, generally corrects abuses, and weeds out the incom- 
l^etent. The careful survey of the peninsula, the settlement of litiga- 
tion, the introduction of improved machinery and of sluicing ditches 
— estimated at an aggregate of three hundred miles in extent — in 
1909, gave rise to the i)rediction of experts that the gold production 
in that region will increase rather than diminish. Its possibilities are 
roughly estimated at three hundred and twenty-five million dollars 
from the placer mines onlj', with no apparent limit to the exploitation 
of the mountains from which the gold has disintegrated. 

Nome grew, like a mushroom, into a city of twenty thousand inhab- 
itants, and at first there was a good deal of lawlessness, so that life 
and property were unsafe; but, as the undesirables were gradually 
weeded out, the town settled down into its summer and winter per- 
manence. 

Perhaps the most succinct summary of the recent history of Alaska 
may be found in an article by the Honorable Walter E. Clarke, the 
governor of the territory. He says : — 

" Ten years ago, Alaska was ' discovered ' by a good many persons. 
Nine years ago, nearly twenty thousand of them started on that elec- 
trifying stampede to Nome. The site of the present town was a deso- 
late tract of tundra when Lindeberg, Lindblom, and Brynteson discov- 
ered gold in a creek, four miles away, at the base of Anvil Mountain. 
In 1899, a good many miners stampeded from other parts of Alaska 
and from the Yukon Territory (Klondike), but the following year came 
the Rush of the Twenty Thousand. Some of the adventurous army 
half encircled the globe to reach the magic gold camp on Bering Sea. 
A good deal has happened since then. The riches of the Tanana Valley 
were not known until several years later, and Fairbanks, now perhaps 
the largest town in Alaska, is only half as old as Nome. Copper and 
coal have been uncovered in the southern part of the territory, and 
railroads are building. An ocean cable has been laid from Seattle, 



90 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

and land-telegraph lines all over the territory are supplemented by 
a system of wireless telegraphy. Wagon roads and trails are being 
built by a commission of officers of the United States Army. More 
than twenty new lighthouses have been erected. Commerce has 
grown." 

Governor Clarke well adds that a commerce of fifty million dollars 
a year deserves adequate protection against the perils of the coast 
line; and the tremendous deposits of copper and coal, which will un- 
doubtedly supply the western coast for decades to come, will justify 
the expense of building railways into those Arctic wastes. 

People fairly well informed, who would not think of asking the 
prospective visitor if he would go into the country over the ice, or 
would travel entirely with dog-teams, or suggest that Juneau was near 
Nome, or even take it for granted that the Klondike is in Alaska, have 
really little conception of the immensity of that territory, or of its 
chief characteristics. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE VASTNESS OF ALASKA. 

ITS area, as far as recent surveys may be trusted, is not far from 
five hundred and ninety thousand square miles, equivalent to all 
of the United States east of the Rockies, with the exception of 
the Gulf States ; or even to the combined area of the thirteen original 
States, including what is now Maine, besides Vemiont, Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, West Virginia, Ohio, and almost half of Washington; or, again, 
to more than twice all Germany. Sitka and the Pribilof Islands lie 
on nearly the same degree of latitude, and the southernmost limit of 
Alaska corresponds with Hamburg. Nome is twelve hundred miles 
northwest of Juneau, and two thousand and seven miles northwest 
of Seattle. From the Tongass National Forest, at the farthest east, 
the sti-etch is about sixty degrees of longitude — not far from twenty- 
five hundred miles; so that, in a certain sense, it is true that Attu 
Island, the last of the Aleutians, is farther west of San Francisco than 
San Francisco is west of Eastport. Its coast line amounts to not less 
than eleven thousand miles. 

Mr. C. C. Georgeson, special agent in charge of Alaska Investiga- 
tions, estimates that there are in the territory about one hundred thou- 
sand square miles, or one-sixth of the whole region, suitable for 
agriculture and pasturage. " As a matter of fact," he says, " the 
area is probablj'- very much larger since a considerable part of the 
mountain territory vdll afford pasture." This is a little more than 
the area of the combined States of New York and Pennsylvania. Mr. 
Georgeson believes that Alaska can support a population of thirty 
persons to the square mile, and he instances Finland, which, geograph- 
ically, is not unlike Alaska, and in fifty thousand square miles supports 



92 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

a population of three millions. He says: — "We have reasons for 
believing that Alaska may equal Finland in agricultural production. 
Temperature is the chief controlling factor in the production of agri- 
cultural crops, and the temperatures, both in the coast region and in 
the interior of Alaska during the growing season, compare favorably 
■with the recorded temperatures of Finland. . . . Finland is a noted 
dairy country. The agricultural exports consist chiefly of butter, 
cheese, and beef from slaughtered dairy animals. In Alaska cattle 
feed can be grown in any quantity, and it can, therefore, also become 
a great dairy coimtry." 

Although Congress has enlarged the homestead in Alaska to thi'ee 
hundred and twenty acres, lack of transportation facilities, or the 
excessive cost of transjiortation, restricts the number of people who 
would otherwise flock to the country. 

The tourist who takes the usual summer trip to Alaska sees only 
the coast fringe of one district — the Sitkan or southeastern, which 
contains, according as it is reckoned, not more than a twelfth, or a 
twentieth, of the whole territory. There are five other divisions. Al- 
though, of course, it is impossible within the limits of a small volume 
to cover them all with much detail, we will visit them all in imagination, 
and try to picture to ourselves, in some adequate way, the wonderful 
region which the energy of man is beginning to tame to civilization. 

All tourists agree as to the perfect charm of the steamship route 
to Sitka. Leaving either Tacoma or Seattle, and traversing the Strait 
of Juan de Fuca, skirting the mountainous island of Vancouver — key 
of the Pacific — for two hundred and seventy miles, through the often 
dangerous Discovery Passage, or Valdez Narrows, where so many ship- 
wi'ecks have occurred, owing to the tremendous tidal current which 
runs through it, back and forth, at the rate of fourteen knots an hour; 
thence for forty miles across Queen Charlotte Sound, exposed to the 
sweep of the Pacific swells, and made misty by the Kuro Siwo; at 
length, after the long sweep of Hecate Strait, one reaches the boundary 
of Alaska, at the southern extremity of the Alexander Archipelago. 



THE VASTNESS OF ALASKA. 93 

All tlie way there have been enchanting views of deep and pictur- 
esque fjords, of snow-clad mountains, and magnificent glaciers. Hun- 
dreds of islands have loomed up, as if to cut off further progress, but 
have, as it were, stepped aside, leaving narrow passages, where the 
greatest steamships could tie up to precipitous banks. The multitudi- 
nous islands, which form a fringe between the mainland and the open 
Pacific, nearly all the way from Puget Sound to Skaguay, Alaska — 
indeed one might say also from Prince William Sound to the very end 
of the Aleutian Islands — are evidently the peaks and summits of 
mountain ranges which have been sunk beneath the sea. The extreme 
depths of the water-ways correspond to the valleys in the inner moun- 
tains that run parallel to the coast; and the canals, arms, inlets, bays 
and fjords, that give such marvellous diversity to the coast, correspond 
to the passes and canons on land. 

Alaska is separated from British Columbia by Portland Canal, a 
deep fjord running for about a hundred miles, part of the way diag- 
onally through the Coast Range, thus furnishing a comparatively easy 
pass into the Yukon basin. The steamships all stop at Ketchikan, which 
is the distributing-point for the great mining district of that region. 
For many years, salmon-fisheries and canning were the principal inter- 
est of the Ketchikan district. Salmon-fishers were among the first to 
discover the mineral wealth of that region. In 1892, James Bowden 
discovered gold in paying quantities on Annette Island. After the 
disappointing outcome of the Cassiar gold-quest, some of the argo- 
nauts returned to Ketchikan, and exploited the claims in that vicinity. 
The town, in 1902, had a j^opulation of about seven hundred. It is 
provided vsdth excellent hotels and shops. Launches and sloops abound, 
and the tourist might spend many days in cruising among the fasci- 
nating islands of the archipelago. 

He will surely wish to go to New Metlakatla, the home of the colony 
of Timpsean Indians, who, under the ministrations of William Dun- 
can, have attained a high degree of civilization. William Duncan came 
to Fort Simpson in 1857, as a lay worker for the Church Mission So- 



94 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

ciety. The Indians in that vicinity, amounting to perhaps ten or fif- 
teen thousand men, were fierce savages. It was even charged tiiat they 
were addicted to cannibalism, that they frequently ate the dead bodies 
of their relatives, even those who had died of disgusting diseases. But 
Sir George Simpson, who tells these terrible stories of them, also 
acknowledges that they were peculiarly comely, strong, and well-grown, 
and were ingenious in carving stone, wood and ivory. 

Duncan settled among them, learned their language, inspired them 
with perfect confidence, and gradually induced them to adopt his ways 
of life. He established a community settlement about twenty miles 
south of Fort Simpson ; and, with the assistance of the Indians, cleared 
a tract of land; built two-story cottages, a church, a school-house — 
octagon shaped, suitable for town meetings — a co-operative store, 
soap factory, blacksmith shop, saw-mill, and a salmon-cannery. He 
engaged assistants, and taught the young Indians carpentry, shoe- 
making, tanning, blanket-weaving, rope-making, and boat-building. A 
German music-master instructed them in singing and the practice of 
various instruments, and formed a band. A few years later, the Eng- 
lish Church sent out a Bishop to superintend the missions. This Bishop 
Eidley entirely misunderstood the Indian character; he was narrow- 
minded and bigoted. Mr. Duncan realized that the Communion service, 
where the communicants are taught that they are eating the Body and 
drinking the Blood of God, was a dangerous ceremony for a people 
just emerged from cannibalism, and protested against it, but the Bishop 
was obstinate and opinionated. The fiiction between him and the lay- 
missionary grew more and more galling, and finally, in 1887, Mr. Dun- 
can went to Washington and obtained permission to transfer his people 
to Annette Island. His mission proved successful, and the island was, 
in 1891, set apart as a reservation for the Metlakatlans. Seven hundred 
of the Indians, taking with them only their personal belongings, and 
leaving their houses and all their other property, emigrated to this 
new wilderness, and there the old experiment was continued under 
somewhat new conditions. 



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r.OOKINt; Ul' WHITE I'ASS Sl'iliUT. 



THE VASTNESS OF ALASKA. 97 

There they built a new saw-mill, a wharf, a well-appointed co-opera- 
tive store, town-hall, a large church — attractive architecturally and 
steam-heated — and comfortable quarters for the tribe and their be- 
loved missionary. Schools for the boys and girls are well attended. 
There is an excellent system of water-works, and a large cannery, the 
salmon for which is provided by the inhabitants. The community, or, 
one might call it, the Commune, own all these adjuncts to civilization, 
as well as several vessels. Natives, by the laws of the United States, 
are forbidden to do any mining. If this unreasonable law was abro- 
gated, at least under certain conditions, undoubtedly Father Dun- 
can's Indians would exploit the mines that have been discovered on 
his island. The natives themselves, in a big council meeting held in 
1895, declared themselves in favor of a community title, the town coun- 
cil to grant allotments of land, for legitimate purposes, to individuals ; 
but they did not favor a Government grant of individual titles to lots 
of one hundred and sixty acres each, as that was supposed to be preju- 
dicial to the community interests. They also very sensibly demanded 
that all salmon streams should be declared Indian reservations, so that 
only proper persons, under proper conditions, should be allowed to 
operate them; the amount of salmon taken from each stream being 
limited, and all barricades forbidden by law. 

The New Metlakatla community is governed by a council of thrifty 
members, under the direction of a president. There is a police 
force of twenty men. The system of taxes is adapted to maintain 
all the public institutions; the cannery and saw-mill belong to stock- 
companies controlled by the Indians. There are fine, wide sidewalks; 
and a band of twenty instruments plays on days when the steamer 
arrives. 

All the members of the community are required to sign a declara- 
tion, in accordance with which they agree to reverence the Sabbath, 
to attend Divine worship, to take the Bible as their rule of faith, to 
regard all Christians as their brethren, to be truthful, honest and in- 
dustrious, to be faithful and loyal to the Government and laws of the 



98 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

United States, to vote -wheii required, to obey the regulations of their 
Council, to educate their children, to abstain from all intoxicants and 
gambling, to refrain from heathen festivities, to carry out all necessary 
sanitary regulations, to identify themselves with the interests of the 
commune, and never to give away or dispose of their land to any per- 
sons who have not subscribed to the rules. 

Mr. Duncan's experiment, in a communistic commonwealth for the 
natives, is justly regarded as an object lesson in the treatment of the 
Indians. In almost all other places, the story of the dealings of the 
whites with the aborigines is stained with horror. Mr. Henry S. Well- 
come, in his " Story of Metlakatla," says: — 

" This people, only thirty years since, consisted of the most ferocious 
Indian tribes, given up to constant warfare, notorious for treachery, 
cannibalism, and other hideous practices. Mr. William Duncan, with 
rare fortitude and genius, began single-handed a mission. He educated 
them and taught them Christianity in the simplest manner; at the 
same time introducing peaceful industries; and by these means he 
wrought, in a single generation, a marvellous transformation. Where 
blood had flowed continually, he founded the self-supporting village 
of Metlakatla, that will compare favorably with almost any village 
of its size in England or America for intelligence, morality and 
thrift." 

The boundary between the Dominion and Alaska crosses the upper 
end of Dixon Entrance, so named after Vancouver's Captain Dixon, 
but also called Granitza Sound and Kygan Strait. It was originally 
named Perez Inlet, in 1775, by the discoverer, Bodegay Quadra. How 
unfortunate that the Indian names should not have been more fre- 
quently retained, instead of attaching to noble mountains and lordly 
waters the often ugly names of insignificant sailors! Then would 
Kainer have been Tacoma or Takoba, meaning Snowy Mountain; and 
Seymour Narrows would have borne the name of the Yalailta, the 
Lorelei of that wild pass ; and many a beautiful island and river would 
have coimnemorated the vanishing peoples of those shores. 



THE VASTNESS OF ALASKA. 99 

The controversy regarding the boundary, at some stages, grew acute. 
Fortunate it was that good councils prevailed, however ; and the coun- 
cils interested in the boundary question accepted the mediation of the 
German Emperor in determining the limitation of their respective 
possessions. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE NORTHWAKD PASSAGE. 



THE steamboat, as it makes its way toward tlie north, pushes 
through a perfect labjTinth of islands. One of the largest and 
most interesting is called Re\'ilIagigedo, after the viceroy of 
Espana Nueva. The natives called it " Naa " or " Na-ha," meaning 
" the distant (or fair?) lakes." It has been partially explored and 
geologically plotted, although it covers an area of more than a thousand 
square miles, approximating the size of Rhode Island. It is through- 
out mountainous, and remarkable for its beautiful scenery. The so- 
called Behm Canal almost encircles it, separating it from the mainland. 
It is cleft in two by Carroll Inlet, and its streams are famous for 
their profusion of salmon. In days not so remote, it was true that 
there was no room for the water, so thick were the tish, struggling to 
reach their spawning grounds ! These are reached by a narrow stream, 
connecting with a chain of beautiful fresh water ponds or lakes. One 
of them is called Lake Adorable : it is four miles long and two miles 
wide, surrounded by magnificent forests. Tourists never tire of watch- 
ing the salmon hurrying across it to reach the stream that connects 
it with the lakes beyond. Sometimes several bears, two varieties of 
which are found on the island, have been seen on the edge of the lake 
engaged in catching salmon. Formerly, there was a multitude of small 
red deer in the uplands, but the huntsmen, who, in a single year, de- 
stroyed twenty-five thousand for their hides, have almost exterminated 
them. The lakes also are breeding grounds for countless flocks of 
ducks and other wild feathered game. 

Threading Tongass Narrows and Clover Pass — named after Rear- 
Admiral Clover of the United States Navy — one reaches the canning- 

100 



THE NORTHWARD PASSAGE. l()l 

town of Loring, where this gi'eat industry may be seen in its perfection. 
The five principal varieties of Pacific salmon seem to follow a regular 
sequence in their run. First, in the early spring, come the tyee, the 
quinnat (Chinook) or king salmon, often attaining a weight of a hun- 
dred pounds. Stories are told of their growing to such a size that a 
cask will hold but four! Although abundant in the Alaskan rivers, 
they travel in pairs and not in schools. The flesh of this variety is 
pale and excellent. In June, appear the red salmon, or sockeye; av- 
eraging from six to ten pounds, tough and requiring long cooking; and 
actually blackening the waters in their abundance. They swim up the 
Yukon for eighteen hundred miles. Seven thousand have been taken 
in a single cast of the net. Then come the " kisutch " or silver salmon 
— most agile of fish — leaping high falls, and turning the rapids into 
cascades of life. The " gorbusha " or hump-back salmon, which Van- 
couver called hunch-back, and found unpalatable, appear in August. 
Besides these, there is the silvery dog-salmon (or calico), unsuitable 
for canning, but good fresh or salted. These fish are trailed by the 
malma, or Dolly Varden, and other varieties of trout eager for salmon- 
eggs. 

Mrs. Eliza Euhamah Scidmore gives a vivid description of the proc- 
ess of canning the fish. She says: — " The seining and outdoor work 
are done by white men, a few Indians being sometimes employed under 
them. While industrious to a degree, the Thlinkit can not be depended 
upon; and the native is too apt to strike, to start upon a prolonged 
potlatch, or go berrying or fishing on his own account, in the height 
of the salmon run. In the skilful manipulation of the cans and ma- 
chines within doors, neither he nor the white man can approach the 
automatic exactness and dexterity of the Chinese, who, being paid by 
the piece, take no account of a day's working hours, and keep the 
machinery going as long as there are fish in the cannery. 

" The fish are thrown from the arriving scows to a latticed floor, 
or loaded directly into the trucks and rolled into the cannery. The 
cleaner seizes a fish, and in two seconds trims and cleans it — behead- 



102 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

ing, detailing, and rending it with so many strokes of his long thin 
knife. It is washed, scraped, cut in sections the length of a can, packed, 
soldered, steamed, tested, vented, steamed again, resoldered, lacquered, 
labelled, and boxed. The tin is taken up in sheets, and an ingenious 
machine punch rolls and fits the covers to the cans. These roll down 
an inclined gutter of melted solder, which closes the edges. The experts 
can tell, by a tap of the finger, if each can is air-tight. If not her- 
metically closed, the contents rapidly change, burst the cans in transit 
* below,' or explode unpleasantly in distant markets." 

Recently, a wonderful machine has been devised, which trims the 
fish far more quickly and economically than can be done by human 
hands. 

In spite of the endeavors of the United States Fish-Commission, 
wasteful and ultimately ruinous methods of catching the salmon have 
not been suppressed. The products have steadily increased, until from 
an output of a little more than forty thousand dollars in 1878, it aggre- 
gated, in 1908, about ten millions — nearly one hundred and thirty 
million pounds — employing more than thirteen thousand persons. 
The Federal law of 1906 " levies license taxes on business and output; 
makes suitable exemptions for salmon-fry liberated; forbids obstruc- 
tions against ascent of fish to spawning grounds ; limits seine and other 
similar appliances ; fixes methods and times of fishing in United States 
waters ; authorizes preserves for spawning grounds ; forbids canning 
or salting of fish more than two days dead; makes unlawful the 
wanton destruction of fish; proscribes misbranding; requires sworn 
annual reports from corporations ; and authorizes the Secretary of 
Commerce and Labor to formulate regulations for the enforcement of 
the act." 

When the enormous waste of the offal from the canneries — amount- 
ing to thirty-five million pounds in a single season, and equivalent to 
seven million pounds of excellent fertilizer and three or four hundred 
thousand gallons of oil — is saved, the profits of the canneries will be 
still greater. 



THE NORTHWARD PASSAGE. 103 

The deep, narrow cliannel which runs nearly around Revillagigedo 
Ishind was called Behm Canal after Major Behm, who commanded the 
Russian port in Kamchatka at the time when Cook's ships wintered 
there. Vancouver was a midshipman on this voyage. 

Occasionally a steamship makes the circuit of the island, the shores 
of which are extremely steep, the mountains in the interior rising to 
a height of several thousand feet. The view northward from Point 
Sykes at the entrance of the canal has been pronounced to be the finest 
in Southern Alaska. One of the features is the so-called New Eddy- 
stone Rock, which rises like a tower two hundred and fifty feet from 
the water with a circumference of less than one hundred and fifty feet. 
There is an interesting engraving of it in the third volume of Van- 
couver's narration. 

Opposite Revillagigedo lies the great Prince of Wales Island which 
is more than two hundred miles long and as large as the State of Dela- 
ware. It is very mountainous, the peaks rising to a height of three 
thousand feet, and its surface is broken by numerous bays and indenta- 
tions, while channels and bays separate it from a host of larger and 
smaller islands toward the west. The mild climate, the thermometer 
rarely reaching zero, and the moist atmosphere have been favorable 
to vegetation and the splendid Alaska cedar here attains its highest 
perfection. Some of the large trees measure eight feet in diameter 
and attain a height of one hundred and fifty feet. The Chinese used 
to buy this wood of the Russians and after making it into boxes and 
chests or ornamental carvings palm it off as camphor or sandal-wood. 
It is pleasant to note that during the administration of President 
Roosevelt the so-called Tongass Forest Reservation, an area of more 
than one thousand square miles, including the cedar groves of the 
great islands, was brought under national control. No timber may be 
exported from Alaska ; and in spite of the apparently enormous supply 
which the tourist sees, covering the mountains often to a height of five 
thousand feet, the forests are largely confined to a narrow belt along 
the coast, and the larger part of the timber used in Alaska is impoi'ted. 



104 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

Copper and gold have been found in the Alexander Archipelago and 
hundreds of claims have been entered. Some of them have been suc- 
cessfully worked. 

The largest native village on the island was long famous for its 
display of totem-poles, guarding houses and the ruins of houses. 

The Indians are of the Haidah or Hyda tribe who migrated from 
the Queen Charlotte group farther south. They were a warlike and 
treacherous people, and often made predatory incursions even as far 
south as Puget Sound. They are supposed to be of Japanese origin, 
as their own name Kaigan is Japanese, meaning seashore, and they 
have features resembling the Japanese. Their artistic talents, also, 
would seem to point to the same derivation. 

The island is wonderfully diversified with bays and inlets. Besides 
the mines of copper and gold that have been recently exploited, there 
are deposits of excellent marble and granite. The forests are included 
in the United States Reservation. 

Vancouver's " very remarkable barren, peaked mountain " at the 
north end of the island has been reported as a volcano. 

Kasaan Bay penetrates into the interior for seventeen miles. It is 
named after the village of the redoubtable old cliief Skowl, who was 
the Kamehameha of the Eagle Clan and nded his people with an iron 
hand. No missionaries for him ! On his totem-pole were carved the 
image of a priest, an angel and a book in derisive reference to the 
efforts to make " a good Indian " of him. His daughter was married 
to a Russian promyshlenik who was one of the first pelagic seal-fishers 
and he probably engaged also in smuggling. At his fishery on Karta 
Bay at the end of the Kasaan Bay United States customs officers found 
in 1885 forty thousand dollars' worth of prepared opium packed in 
barrels and ready to be imported in the guise of salted salmon. Skowl 's 
name is preserved on or in a long-stretching inlet or arm. 

A few miles farther south the island is almost cut in two by 
Cholmondeley Sound which reaches by a portage within less than four 
miles of Hetta Inlet and the safe landlocked reaches of Tlevak Strait. 



THE NORTHWARD PASSAGE. 105 

Cholmondeley Sound is rendered interesting and beautiful by Eudora 
Mountain, which rises to a height of thirty-five hundred feet. This 
mountain is also reached by Moira Sound, which is famed for its 
beauty. 



CHAPTER XT. 

WEANGEL AND THE GLACIERS. 

THE steamship ploughs through the Duke of Clarence Strait 
which runs for more than a hundred miles between the two 
great islands. Its first stop is at Wrangel, or Vrangel, the 
second oldest town in Southeastern Alaska. It was built on the island 
of the same name by Lieutenant Dionisi Feodorovitch Zarembo, whose 
mission was to prevent the Hudson Bay Company from erecting tra- 
ding-posts on the Stikine River. His action was contrary to treaty and 
the Russians had to pay a heavy indemnity, and lease to the Hudson 
Bay Company the thirty mile striji or lisiere from Dixon Entrance to 
Yakutat. The English settlement was called Fort Stikine, but the name 
did not stick. The discovery of gold on the reaches of that river caused 
the fur trade to sink into insignificance. In 1867 the United States 
military forces established a garrison there, including a hospital, resi- 
dence for officers and men, bakery, storehouses, stables and other build- 
ings. All this property, when the post was abandoned three years 
later, was sold to a local trader and sutler for six hundred dollars, — 
an excellent illustration of the general carelessness with which affairs 
in Alaska were managed. Twenty years later, after a considerable 
period of litigation, the property was restored to the Government, the 
original sale having been declared illegal. The purchaser received 
back his six hundred dollars with compound interest. 

Since then Wrangel has had its ups and downs. Houses were in de- 
mand and trade was good during the temporary excitement of the gold 
quest in the Cassiar district ; then when the mines up the Stikine were 
abandoned, it again relapsed into stagnation. Even the forest of totem- 



WR ANGEL AND THE GLACIERS. 107 

poles that designated the native village was stripped; as late as 1893 
only half a dozen remained. The town itself has been almost destroyed 
by fire in recent years and there are comparatively few remains of 
the ancient days. 

The curious visitor is taken to see the grave of the historic old chief, 
Shakes, who was for nearly half a century the terror of the coast. He 
opposed the missionaries, and furnished the natives with the intoxicat- 
ing huchinu, or native rum, distilled from molasses and flour. When 
he died there were great ceremonies. His body was exposed in all his 
trappings. His treasures of carven chests, of blankets and of furs 
were piled high. An enormous stuffed grizzly — the emblem of his 
glorious line — with copper claws and waggling jaws was made to 
take part in a theatrical representation depicting the ancient days when 
Shakes 's ancestors, at the time of the flood, took a bear into their canoe 
and saved him from drowning and were rewarded by the reciprocal 
generosity of the bear, who, when the canoe grounded, brought his 
rescuers food. Over Shakes 's grave, when at last he was laid to rest, 
a bear was put on guard. 

The climate of Wrangel is eminently favorable for market garden- 
ing. Mrs. Scidmore is authority for the statement that cabbages and 
mangel-wurzel I'each prodigious size ; cauliflowers are produced meas- 
uring eighteen inches around ; and peas, beans, lettuce, celery, rhubarb 
and radishes thrive. Wild timothy grows six feet high in old clearings, 
and clover heads are twice the size of eastern clover, each blossom 
widespread, as red and fragrant as a carnation pink. 

Wrangel is situated near the mouth of the Stikine River, the third 
largest river of the Alaskan coast, which was reached but not discov- 
ered by Vancouver's men. It was first reported by two American ship 
captains in 1799. Its head waters were first discovered in 1838 by a 
Scotch employee of the Hudson Bay Company, who, in crossing the 
mountains, came upon a foaming torrent and followed it down until 
he fell in with a large camp of Indians engaged in catching salmon 
and trading with the famous chief Shakes. From them he learned that 



108 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

the name of the river was Stikine. It should properly be Sta Kina, 
which is said to mean great river. From Wrangel to Glenora, the head 
of navigation, the distance is about one hundred and fifty miles. Forty 
years later John ]\[uir traversed its whole length and counted not less 
than a hundred glaciers that drained directly into the river. The grand 
canon of the Stikine he declared to be a Yosemite a hundred miles long. 

Forty miles above Wrangel and easily reached is the Great or Or- 
lebar Glacier, which descends through a narrow gorge and spreads 
out in a semicircle measuring about three miles from edge to edge. 
Across the river, near the wonderful hot springs, is a smaller glacier, 
which, according to an Indian tradition, was once imited with the Great 
Glacier, the river disappearing into an ice tunnel. They sent two of 
their old men into it in a canoe. Would they ever appear again? Yes, 
they returned and reported that there was a clear passage to the sea. 
In the little cafion the river narrows to less than a hvmdred feet, and 
the current, especially when there are floods, is almost invincible, as 
the early argonauts discovered to their sorrow. On the upper reaches 
of the river the great canon extends for fifty miles through a rocky 
gorge traversible only in winter when there is a solid floor of snow 
and ice. 

The yield of the placers of the Cassiar gold region at the head waters 
of the Stikine is estimated to have amounted to nearly five million dol- 
lars between 1874 and 1887, when its annual output fell from a million 
to a little more than sixty thousand dollars. The larger part of the 
river flows through the Dominion territory and the boundary for years 
gave rise to misunderstandings. 

From Wrangel one can sail straight out into the Pacific by the Sum- 
ner Strait, which is about eighty miles long. Formerly ships proceed- 
ing north had to make this wide detour, passing through Chatham 
Strait and Frederick Sound, but skilful captains now pilot their course 
through Wrangel Narrows. This strait is nineteen miles long and in 
places not three hundred feet wide. Vancouver's explorers entered 
it, but thinking it merely an inlet turned back. It was first traversed 



WRANGEL AND THE GLACIERS. 109 

by the United States Steamer Saginaw iu 18G9. Fifteen years later 
Captain J. B. Coghlan established the route and it has now beea 
charted. It is regarded as one of the great show trips of Alaska. The 
shores of the islands between which it runs are densely wooded, the 
trees thickly hung with the pale green Northern moss. There are 
glimpses of lofty mountains. The intensely green water is alive with 
floating fronds of orange yellow kelp. Here is the haunt of number- 
less eagles. The tides, here confined by narrow channels, rise often 
to a height of more than twenty feet and those from the north and 
south meet in the narrows near what is called Finger Point, and the 
battle of the waters is most dangerous and exciting. All tourists are 
enthusiastic over the beauty of sunsets and sunrises in this enchanting 
region. Mrs. Scidmore says : ' ' The sunset effects in the broad channels 
at either end are renowned, and the possessor of a Claude Lorraine 
glass is the most fortunate of tourists. He who has seen the sunrise 
lights in the narrows has seen the best of the marvellous atmospheric 
and color displays the matchless coast can offer." 

Mrs. Ella Higginson testifies to the same: " Sunrise and sunset 
effects in this narrow channel are justly famed. I once saw a mist 
blown ahead of my steamer at sunset, that, in the vivdd brilliancy of 
its mingled scarlets, greens and purples, rivalled the coloring of a 
humming bird. At dawn long rays of delicate pink, beryl and pearl 
play through this green avenue, deepening in color, fading and with- 
drawing like Northern Lights. When the scene is silvered and softened 
by moonlight one looks for elves and fairies in the shadows of the moss- 
dripping spruce trees. The silence is so intense and the channel so 
narrow that frequently at dawn wild birds on the shores are heard 
saluting the sun with song; and never, under any circumstances, has 
bird song seemed so nearly divine, so golden with magic and message, 
as when thrilled through the fragrant green stillness of Wrangel Nar- 
rows at such an hour." 

Prince Frederick Sound, into which the steamer emei'ges, was so 
named from having been the meeting place of two of Vancouver's lieu- 



110 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

tenants on the birthday of the Duke of York in 1794. They landed 
on Kupreanof Island and there decided that the search for the passage 
from the Pacific into the Atlantic was mythical, all the stories of pre- 
vious na^'igators to the contrary. Mrs. Scidmore says: "With no 
small portion of facetious mirth they remembered that they had sailed 
from England on the first day of April to find the Northwest Passage. 
These lieutenants made plain to their chief the ' uncommonly awful ' 
and ' horribly magnificent ' character of the scenery along the Prince 
Frederick shore, and Vancouver began the lavish use of adjectives 
which is in vogue in Alaskan narrative to-day." 

This refers to a passage in which Lieutenant Whidbey, describing 
the mountains to the south that " rose to a prodigious height," said: 
" A part of them presented an uncommonly awful appearance, rising 
with an inclination toward the water to a vast height, loaded with an 
immense quantity of ice and snow, and overhanging their base, which 
seemed to be insufficient to bear the ponderous fabric it sustained, and 
rendered the view of the passage beneath horribly magnificent." 

As the vessel approaches the sound the eye is attracted by a dark 
spire- shaped peak which rises nearly two thousand feet from the rim 
of a mountain amphitheater on the mainland. It has been called the 
Devil's Thumb with that generosity toward the Powers of Darkness 
which scatters testimonials to their presence all along the coasts of the 
world. The mountains rise to a height of seven thousand feet and as 
one sails to the north crossing the sound, the first coast glaciers are 
encountered. Patterson glacier pours down over a long slope and con- 
tributes a flue waterfall. In Vancouver's time it approached near 
enough to the shore for icebergs to tumble off into the water. He 
describes the weird effect of the thunderous crash heard at a distance 
of several miles. 

This phenomenon is first observed at the present time at the inlet 
poetically named by the Indians Hutli or Thimder Bay, but, with fatal 
banality, Le Conte Bay and Glacier Bay, by the Coast Survey. The 
clear blue ice which comes gliding and sliding down tbrough a steep 



WRANGEL AND THE GLACIERS. HI 

cauon forested to its very edge is about half a mile wide, and the enor- 
mous cakes of cleavage breaking off fall crashing into the water, caus- 
ing the superstitious natives to believe that the bay was the home of 
the thunder-birds, whose flapping pinions caused the echoes to roll 
from the cliffs. 

The finest views of the glaciers are obtained from Thomas Bay and 
the most noticeable feature of the sound is Cape Fanshaw, fronting 
the southwest and exposed to the fierce winds that sweep that re- 
gion. 

Beyond lies Mount Windham, which is twenty-five hundred feet high 
and looks down upon the exhausted gold fields of the seventies. The 
meadows on the shoulders of the high hills here are famous for their 
display of beautiful flowers — dwarf laurel, violets, daisies, anemones 
and the black Kamchatka lily. "When they were explored by John 
Muir in 1879 they were the haunt of the mountain goat and mountain 
sheep. 

In the vicinity of Sumdum Bay is the mining town of the same name. 
The Indian word is said to represent or express the thunder of the 
falling ice. There is a fine glacier sliding down from the mountains 
beyond. The bay divides into two arms, each marked by glaciers, and 
aggregating a length of nearly fifty miles. It is a deep marine caiion, 
soundings having reached two hundred fathoms. Captain "^Tiite of 
the U. S. S. ship Wayanda steered his gig into the arched grotto of 
one of those glaciers and penetrated more than a hundred feet " down 
a crystalline corridor " of marvellous colors. His crew poured out 
libations to the ice-spirits, the Sitt tu yekh, whose chill breath is death 
and who resent interference with his subjects, the icebergs. The sap- 
phire eyed divinity accepted the libations graciously; had he been 
angry he would have ruthlessly shaken down the crystalline arch and 
overwhelmed the audacious mortals. 

Muir regarded Sumdum Bay as the most interesting of all the Alas- 
kan fjords. He says: " A hundred or more glaciers of the second 
and third class may be seen along the walls, and about as many snow 



112 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

cataracts, which, with the plunging bergs, keep all the fjord in a roar. 
The scenery in both the long arms of the bay and their side branches 
is of the wildest description, especially in the upper reaches, where 
the granite walls, sti-eaked with waterfalls, rise in sheer massive preci- 
pices, like those of Yosemite Valley, to a height of three thousand and 
even over four thousand feet." 

The great Admiralty Island, one of the largest of the group, lies to 
the west of Stephens Passage. Like all the rest it is deeply indented 
with inlets, many of which are deep and characterized by swift and 
dangerous tidal currents. There are mountains that rise to a height 
of three and four thousand feet. The cliffs along the coast are rugged 
and wild. In the interior, which has not as yet been thoroughly ex- 
plored, are many lakes. Gold abounds and there are mines of coal and 
quarries of fine marble. The timber, especially the yellow cedar, is 
among the best in Alaska. For many years this region was the centre 
of the whaling industry, and was the haunt of the most blood-thirsty 
of the native tribes. The annals are full of exciting tales of their 
incursions along the coast. Thus in 1857 a party of about a thousand 
sailed on to Puget Sound, shot Colonel Eby, the Collector of Customs, 
on Whidbey Island, and several other men, mounted their heads on 
poles and paddled away in triumph. They were emboldened by their 
impunity and a few years later they seized and scuttled the schooner 
Royal Charlie, and murdered the crew. A Sitka sentry shot one of 
them in 1869 and in revenge they killed two Sitka traders. Then the 
Saginaw appeared and destroyed three of their villages on the upper 
end of the island of Kupreanof . 

In 1880 the Northwest Trading Company established a whaling 
station at Killionu, at the entrance of the remarkable Kutznahu Inlet. 
A bomb haipoon exploded in 1882 and killed a great shaman or medi- 
cine man. The Kutznahus demanded an indemnity of two hundred 
blankets. Wben it was refused they captured a white man as ransom. 
He proved to be blind in one eye and was returned with a message that 
they would exterminate the whites at the settlement unless their de- 



WRANGEL AND THE GLACIERS. 115 

mand was satisfied. Word was sent to Captain Merriman at Sitka; 
lie took tbe revenue cutter and bombarded tbe Indian village of An- 
gnn. Mrs. Scidinore relating tbe occurrence says: " Mucb indig- 
nation was vented by eastern editors at tbe occurrence, and sad pic- 
tures were drawn of tbe natives left sbelterless among ' tbe eternal 
ice and snow of an arctic winter.' Tbe mercury stood twenty degrees 
bigber for tbe montb than in New York and Boston and tbe Kootz- 
naboos, securing front seats on tbe opposite sbore, watched the bom- 
bardment and cheered tbe nearest shots. Tbe tribe saved their winter 
provisions and all their belongings save what pilferers took during 
the bombardment. They paid a fine of four hundred blankets and have 
since kept the peace." 

Their Chief Kitchnatti, known to tourists as Saginaw Jake, because 
of bis year's imprisonment on tbe steamship as a ransom, used to swell 
around in a gay uniform and announce bis greatness by a doggerel 
placard placed over bis log cabin at Killionu. 

These Indians are now insignificant in numbers. 

Another mucb dreaded tribe of natives were the Takus, whose name 
is commemorated in a mountain two thousand feet high, symmetrical 
in shape and densely wooded, and also in an inlet and a glacier. Tbe 
Takus have been called " tbe Alaska Jews," so keen and mercenary 
were they. They drove away tbe garrison from the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany's Fort Durham and looted more than one of their fur ships. 

The Taku Inlet extends for about eighteen miles and ends in a mag- 
nificent glacier called by tbe natives Sitth Klunu Gutta, " the Spirits' 
home." The natives believed that the monstrous man- faced seals 
dwelt in its crystal grottoes. The ice-stream is about a mile wide and 
rises several hundred feet above tbe water. The ice is of remarkable 
purity and serves to supply the refrigerators of visiting ships. Mrs. 
Higginson describes it with her usual brilliancy of impressionistic col- 
oring: 

" The splendid front drops down sheer to the water, from a height 
of probably three hundred feet. 



116 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

" A sapphire mist drifts over it, ■without obscuring the exquisite tint- 
ings of rose, azure, pui-ple and green that flash out from the glistening 
spires and columns. The crumpled mass pushing down from the moun- 
tains strains against the front and sends towered bulks plunging head- 
long into the sea, with a roar that echoes from peak to peak in a kind 
of ' linked sweetness long drawn out ' and ever diminishing." 

The report of a cannon or the vibration of a steamer's whistle will 
dislodge enormous masses of the disintegrating ice, making the passage 
into the bay almost impossible for large vessels and dangerous for 
small ones. 

Mrs. Higginson cannot forgive early discoverer Whidbey's insular 
blindness to beauty. " He found ' a compact body of ice extending 
some distance nearly all around. ' He found ' frozen mountains, ' ' rock 
sides,' ' dwarf pine trees ' and ' undissohang frost and snow.' He 
lamented the lack of a suitable landing place for boats, and reported 
the aspect in general to be ' as dreary and inhospitable as the imagina- 
tion can possibly suggest.' Alas for the poor chilly Englishman," 
continues his critic, ' ' he doubtless expected silvery-gowned ice maidens 
to come sliding out from under the glacier in pearly boats, to bear him 
back into their deep blue grottoes and dells of ice, and refresh him 
with Bussian tea from old brass samovars ; he expected these maidens 
to be girdled and crowned with carnations and poppies, and to pluck 
winy grapes — with dust clinging to their bloomy roundness — from 
living vines for him to eat ; and most of all he expected to find in some 
remote corner of the clear and sparkling cavern a big fireplace, ' which 
would remind him pleasantly of England,' and a brilliant fire on a 
well-swept hearth, with the smoke and sparks going up through a 
melted hole in the glacier." 

The Taku River has been navigated with canoes for sixty miles and 
from its head waters there is comparatively easy communication with 
affluents of the Yukon. But the valley swarms with mosquitoes. 

The open space where Stephens Passage and Taku Inlet resolve into 
the long Gastineau Channel bears an evil name among sailors. " In 



WRANGEL AND THE GLACIERS. 117 

winter," says Mrs. Scidmore, " fierce willaivmvs or ' woolies ' sweep 
from the heights, beat the water to foam, and drive the spray in dense, 
blinding sheets, but in summer it smiles and ripples in perfect peace, 
sparkles with little icebergs, and is a point of magnificent views." Mrs. 
Higginson evidently had the same experience with this place. She 
says : 

" The stretch of water where Stephens Passage, Taku Inlet, Gasti- 
neau Channel, and the southeastern arm of Lynn Canal converge is 
in winter dreaded by pilots. A squall is liable to come tearing down 
Taku Inlet at any moment and meet one from some other direction, 
to the peril of navigation. At times a kind of fine frozen mist is driven 
across by the violent gales, making it difficult to see a ship's length 
ahead. At such times the expressive faces on the bridge of a steamer 
are psychological studies. 

" In summer, however, no open stretch of water could be more in- 
viting. Clear, faintly rippled, deep sapphire, flecked with the first 
glittering bergs floating out of the inlet, it leads the way to the glorious 
presence that lies beyond." 



CHAPTER XII. 

JUNEAtr AND SKAGUAY. 

JUNEAU, the present capital of Alaska, is situated on the main- 
land, about ten miles above the entrance to Gastineau Channel. 
It is flanked by Mount Juneau rising sheer to a height of three 
thousand feet and glittering with patches of snow and airy waterfalls. 
The wharves line the beach; numbered avenues run parallel on ter- 
races, while extremely steep streets, intersecting, climb toward the top 
of " Chicken Ridge." Greely declares that there is not within the 
limits of the town a naturally level spot a hundred feet square. The 
court house stands out on the top of the hill. There are a number 
of churches, a hospital, an " opera house," and of course a rivalry of 
women's clubs. Two daily papers having the benefit of reduced tele- 
graph rates keep the inhabitants in touch with the great world. The 
water supply is abundant and good; the streets are brilliantly lighted 
with electricity. 

Contrary to general belief the winter climate of Juneau is far milder 
than that of Boston. The mercury never goes much below zero. The 
average for January is about twenty-seven degrees and for February 
about twenty-five degrees. The precipitation is generally in the foi-m of 
rain near the level of the sea. The mountains which rise to a height 
of not more than a mile are densely wooded for two-thirds of that 
elevation. Almost all the vegetables of the Temperate Zone grow 
abundantly in the vicinity of Juneau. Noticeable are " \-ine-clad or 
flower-embowered cottages I'eached by gray mossed stairways." The 
population of the town of Juneau varies from two to three thousand, 
being increased in winter by the influx of miners from the colder in- 
terior. 

118 



JUNEAU AND SKAGUAY. 119 

General Greely says that in his ten visits to the town he has experi- 
enced no importunity by beggars or any affront from the mythical 
border ruffian, or witnessed any offensive drunken scenes or street 
disorders. " In short,'.' he says, " Juneau is a well-governed, intelli- 
gent, thri\dng, self-respecting town. ' ' 

Mrs. Higginson describes her first visit there : 

" The unique situation of Juneau appeals powerfully to the lover 
of beauty. There is an unforgetable charm in its narrow crooked 
streets and winding mossed stairways ; its picturesque shops — some 
with gorgeous totem-poles for signs — where a small fortune may be 
spent on a single Attn or Atka basket; the glitter and the music of 
its streets and its ' places,' the latter open all night; its people stand- 
ing in doorways and open corners, eager to talk to strangers and bid 
them welcome ; and its gayly clad squaws, surrounded by fine baskets 
and other work of their brown hands. • In the heart of the town is an 
old Presbyterian Mission church, built of logs, with an artistic square 
tower, also of logs, at one corner. This church is now used as a brewery 
and soda-bottling establishment." 

After the discovery made by Eichard Harris and Joseph Juneau 
in October, 1880, there was a stampede to the Taku region. Many 
spent the winter at Miner's Cove so as to be on hand when spring 
broke. During the first year a guard of United States Marines pre- 
served order, but when it was withdrawn a reign of lawlessness ensued. 
The miners themselves instituted a vigilance committee, but the Grovern- 
ment afforded no protection and refused even to pass any land laws. 
Even when they were passed the absurd regulation that all claims 
must be rectangular and drawn north and south made them impossible 
of application. The new settlement was first called Pilsbury, after the 
first assayer who arrived; then Fliptown by jocular miners; then 
Rockwell after the commander of Jamestown; then Harrisburg, and, 
at the meeting when in May, 1882, finally the name Jimeau was adopted 
all the Chinese were driven from the camp. Four years later anti- 
Chinese riots resulted in grievous wrongs to the long-cued Celestials. 



120 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

The Chinese cabins were dynamited and the Chinese were all forcibly 
put aboard a schooner and set adrift without any pro\nsions. 

About five miles across the channel from Juneau on Douglas Island, 
which is twenty-five miles long and from five to eight miles wide, lie 
the famous Treadwell mines, which are regarded as the second largest 
in the world. The quartz has been excavated to a depth of one thousand 
feet and the tunnels run under the channel. The eight or nine hundred 
stamps drop continuously day and night with only two days of rest 
— Christmas and the glorious Fourth. And the net profits from the 
ore, though it is of low grade, are said to be six thousand dollars a 
day. The original cost to John Treadwell was less than five hundred 
dollars. At first he was obliged to remain on his property and drive 
away the lawless squatters against whom he had no other protection 
than force. Millions were spent on machinery and equipment; no 
expense has ever been spared for improvements and it is said that the 
treatment of the miners has been equitable and even generous. There 
are two towns aggregating three thousand inhabitants — Treadwell, 
where the miners live, and Douglas, mainly devoted to trading inter- 
ests. They stretch along the channel for a mile or more and are 
brilliantly lighted and provided with all the advantages of civiliza- 
tion. 

From Juneau to Skaguay is one of the most fascinating trips in 
Southern Alaska. The ship retraces its course as far as the southern 
end of Douglas Island and passes into Lynn Canal or Channel, which 
is a continuation of Chatham Strait separating Admiralty from Chich- 
agof Islands, and making altogether a royal waterway averaging five 
miles in width for nearly two hundred miles. Before the Russians 
permitted their policy of extermination these waters were the haunts 
of countless sea-otters. Now they are rarely seen. 

The Lynn Canal, which was named by Vancouver from his native 
town in Norfolk, is called the noblest and most majestic of the slender 
waterways of Alaska. It has been sounded to a depth of more than 
twenty-five hundred feet, and it is bounded by mountains rising more 



JUNEAU AND SKAGUAY. 121 

than a mile in Iieiglit on both sides. Snow covered peaks and domes 
form a continuous panorama and the colors are gorgeous, especially at 
sunset, when the snows become rose, and the reaches grow purple and 
orange. Even the prosaic Vancouver's still more prosaic ofi&cer, Whid- 
bey, had to speak of this fjord as " bounded by lofty, stupendous 
mountains, . . . forever doomed to support a burthen of undissolving 
ice and snow." The undissolving ice and snow caused by the tremen- 
dous precipitation fill the valleys and form the wonderful glaciers which 
line the canal. One discovered by the then Captain L. A. Beardsley in 
1879 " is surmounted by a rocky crag, which resembles our national 
bird so much more than does the figure on the new dollar that we chris- 
tened it the Eagle Glacier. ' ' 

At Seduction Point the canal divides into two channels, Chilkat 
Inlet on the west and Chilkoot on the east. The point was so named 
by Vancouver because after WTiidbey had explored the two inlets and 
discovered the Chilkat River, he was met by several canoe-loads of 
natives " of exceedingly artful character " led by a very dignified 
chief dressed in robes of state — the narkhin or native blanket — a 
blanket variegated with several colors and ornamented with little parti- 
colored tufts, a headdress made of wood resembling a crown and 
adorned with copper spangles attached to wool and fur streamers, 
each terminating in an ermine skin. He was suspicious of them and 
his suspicions seem to have been justified, but he escaped their treach- 
ery and withdrew to Point Retreat on the northern end of Admiralty 
Island. 

At the head of Chilkat Inlet, on Pyramid Harbor, is a cannery which 
exploits the multitudinous salmon which run up the river. Back of it 
is Mount Labouchere which rises almost perpendicularly to a height 
of nearly two thousand feet. The woods with which it is crowned are 
infested with bears. Summer visitors here usually find a camp of Chil- 
kat Indians who sell blankets, baskets, spoons and curios, as well as 
wonderful bouquets of wild roses. The Chilkat blankets are among 
the most famous of all Indian manufactures. They were formerly dyed 



122 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

black, yellow and blue or red with a black border and of nermanent 
colors, but the demand for them has induced their weavers to use tra- 
der's yarns in aniline dyes. They were woven of the finely spun wool 
of the mountain goat on a warp of fine cedar threads. Suspended from 
an upright loom the symbolism of the native heraldry is often per- 
petuated in their ornamentation : the full face with wide nostrils, tiny 
eyes and savage teeth represents the bear ; the claws and inverted eye 
stand for the presence of the thunder-bird. 

The Chilkats and Chilkoots, two branches of the great ethnographic 
division of the Alaska Indians called Tlingits or Thlinkits, a word 
meaning men, controlled the passes into the Yukon region. No mem- 
bers of other tribes dared cross their domain and for many years they 
were ready to attack any white prospectors or explorers. All the clans 
of this great tribe had similar customs and beliefs. They were like the 
primitive Scots in their heraldry. Each clan had its own totem or 
symbol, generally representing some bii'd, fish or animal. The two 
great divisions were the Raven Clan, including the Frog, the Goose, 
the Sea Lion, the Owl and the Salmon, who claimed to be descended 
from Yeshl, the gi'eat Creator, whose dwelling-place is where the East 
wind begins to blow; and the Wolf Clan, descended from Khenukh, 
guardian of the sacred well, and including the Bear, the Eagle, the 
Porpoise, the Shark and others. At dances and great ceremonies the 
people would frequently dress up to represent the clan totem; and 
easily recognized parts of it — a wing, or a tooth, or an eye — 
would be painted on canvas or shields or woven into blankets and 
baskets. 

Men could not marry into their own clan and when they procured 
wives from a different clan the symbol of the new connection was trans- 
ferred to the heraldic totem-pole, which thus became, as it were, a 
family-tree. The unfortunate persuasions of the early missionaries 
which led many of the converts to destroy their wonderfully carved 
and colored poles can not be sufficiently regretted. Thousands of them 
have disappeared. The Harriman expedition visited several deserted 



JUNEAU AND SKAGUAY. 123 

villages along the coast where the poles were still standing — mute 
witnesses of a perished people. 

The great Russian missionary, Veniaminof, made many interesting 
observations on their habits and customs. Their favorite medium 
of exchange was blankets, and they were sufficiently mercenary to be 
satisfied for any injury, even for a mortal one, with a payment in that 
commodity. This was not always reasonably reckoned. Thus it is 
said that when a Sitkan Thlinkit broke into the cabin of a white man 
and drank himself to death, his clan demanded and received compen- 
sation as if they had been to blame. On another occasion a trading 
schooner rescued two Thlinkit fishermen from a sinking canoe. The 
owners themselves cut the craft adrift, but when the humane captain 
went out of his way to land the two men at their village, the inhab- 
itants demanded payment for the lost canoe and threatened summary 
vengeance if it were not instantly paid. 

In the olden days these tribes made themselves as hideous as pos- 
sible, especially when about to go into battle. Both men and women 
painted their faces black with soot and red with cinnabar, afterwards 
scratching horrible designs on them with wooden sticks. They wore 
silver rings or even feathers or other objects in the nose, the septum 
being pierced in childhood for this purpose. The women wore a huge 
labret in the lower lip. On reaching marriageable age the lip was 
pierced and a small round piece of bone or silver was inserted. This 
hole was enlarged gradually, in some cases the ornament being two 
inches in diameter, making the lip protrude and rendering it impos- 
sible to close. The old chieftainess who attacked Vancouver so fiercely 
was conspicuous by reason of this disgusting deformity. They also 
pierced their ears to commemorate some great exploit. Their war 
canoes were frequently carved out from a single log large enough to 
carry forty or fifty men, and were ornamented at bow and stern with 
gayly colored barbaric carvings, as were also the paddles and oars. 
They had the art of forging copper and they even carved jade. Eth- 
nologists have traced a connection between the language of the Thlin- 



124 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

kits and the Apaches as well as of the Aztecs. It is possible that the 
earliest immigrants came from Asia and descended toward the south. 
Their own legends indicate a contrary arrival. 

Confined to a narrow belt of coast the Thlinkits were great fisher- 
men and hunters of sea-creatures. From superstition they refrained 
from killing- birds and they did not like to interfere with bears, having 
been imbued by their shamans, or medicine men, with the notion that 
bears are human beings in animal shape. Their treatment of new- 
born children and of women just delivered was cruel in the extreme; 
it was a wonder that any survived. They burned their dead and ao- 
companied the ceremony with curious actions, sometimes the relatives 
putting their heads in the flames and burning off all the hair, or other- 
wise torturing their flesh. After the cremation the relatives indulged 
in a regular wake for four nights in succession, howling themselves 
hoarse. Sometimes if the deceased was wealthy a slave or two would 
be killed to give him service in another world. At the end of the period 
of mourning gifts were distributed and all present indulged in a feast. 
The heir was a sister's son, and he was compelled to marry the 
widow. 

This gi^^ng of presents is called potlatch, and is often so extrava- 
gant as to ruin those giving them. The ceremony is thus described by 
Paul S. Luttrell : ' ' The most prolific source of potlatching is the erec- 
tion of new houses. The location for the new building is selected at 
a ' smoking council ' of the tribe, after which the erection is commenced, 
the owner being assisted by such members of his tribe as are experts. 
As it draws near completion another council is held, at which is decided 
the date of the potlatch. The whole tribe is notified and each member 
is expected to contribute something toward the potlatch and the sub- 
sequent feast. On the eventful morning all assemble at the new house, 
each in his best, with the exposed portion of their bodies covered with 
paint and further embellished with wads of cotton pasted at irregular 
intervals on the face and in the hair. The festivities commence with 
a dance, the women executing a species of side-shuffle, while the men 



JUNEAU AND SKAGUAY. 125 

augment the enthusiasm by stamping their feet. Everybody sings. 
When the song and dancing are finished, some one hands up a bolt of 
calico, or some blankets, handkerchiefs, soap, or what not, at the same 
time mentioning the name of the person or persons to whom the donor 
desires the present to be given. (It is well to mention parenthetically, 
that the potlatch presents and feast are given to members of opposite 
tribes.) The present, whatever it may be, is divided or torn into as 
many portions as donees, and then presented, after which more singing 
and more presents, until everything is given away. This may last 
twenty-four or forty-eight hours, the women during this time never 
leaving the house, and eating nothing save an occasional cracker, which 
may have been presented to them, moistening their throats as they 
become dry with the juice of tobacco, made moist in a can of water. 

" After the potlatch comes the feast. Rice has been cooked and 
seasoned with molasses and seal oil; boxes of sugar and biscuits are 
opened, and an abundance of the omnipresent seal grease provided. 
Every available receptacle, from a washtub to an old tin can, is used 
for passing around the food, and everybody eats until their stomachs 
rebel, go outside, relieve themselves by vomiting, and return to the 
attack, until all has been consumed. They know no such thing as an 
intermediate point. The potlatch and subsequent feast must exceed 
the cost of the simple structure in honor of which it is given many 
times." 

The Thlinkit mythology is largely concerned with the adventures 
of Yeshl, who was able to fly in the skin of the long-billed kutzgatushl 
or crane. When his jealous uncle tried to kill him as he had killed 
all of his other nephews by upsetting them from a canoe, Yeshl walked 
along the sea-bottom and escaped. Then the wicked uncle, who seems 
to correspond to Saturn in Greek mythology, sent a great flood. Yeshl 
put on his crane skin and flew up into the skies until the flood subsided. 
His manner of giving mankind light is thus described : 

A rich and powerful chief had the sun, moon and stars concealed in 
three strong boxes. He also had a daughter whom he loved and pam- 



126 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

pered but guarded with extraordinary care. Yeshl discovered that the 
only way to obtain possession of the treasures of light was to be bom 
as the chief's grandson. He transformed himself into a blade of grass 
and when the beautiful maiden drank from her bowl he slipped down 
her throat, and in due time was born as a tiny infant. Her father took 
a great fancy to this mysterious grandson and there was nothing that 
he would not give to him. Once upon a time he began to cry and could 
not be quieted. He managed to signify that what he wanted was in 
the three sacred boxes. The grandfather to pacify him let him have 
one of them. He dragged it out of doors, opened the lid, and lo, the 
stars were shining in heaven ! The ruse worked similarly well in re- 
gard to the moon, but when he tried to obtain the third box containing 
the sun the grandfather was inexorable. But when the boy refused to 
be comforted he let him play with it on the condition that he should 
not open the lid. As soon as he got it outside he transformed himself 
into a great raven and flew away with the box. As he flew he heard 
voices but could not see the people because the sun was still in the 
box. When at last he opened it, the inhabitants of the earth were 
frightened at the dazzling brilliancy and hid themselves and were 
changed into fishes, bears and other animals according to their hiding- 
place. But the Thlinkits were still without fire ; it was only to be found 
on an island far out at sea. This Indian Prometheus flew thither, 
picked up a burning brand and hurried back with it ; but the distance 
was so great that when he got back the brand was almost consumed 
and even his bill was scorched. Consequently he dropped the glowing 
coal and the sparks were scattered over the whole shore ; that is why 
both wood and stone contain fire. 

He also procured fresh water for his peoj^le from the sacred well 
guarded by Khenukh, the ancestor of the Wolf clan. Yeshl managed 
to gather up some in his bill and when he flew back wherever he dropped 
a dx'op of water spread lakes and ponds and rivers and brooks. Khe- 
nukh was represented as stronger even than Yeshl, though not so 
shrewd, as was proved by the larceny of the water. When he had 



JUNEAU AND SKAGUAY. 127 

accomplislied all lie felt was necessary for Ms people Yeshl disap- 
peared and went to his home in the far east. 

The Thlinkits have many other gods and spirits, and the phenomena 
of nature — the Northern lights and comets and meteors — have their 
superstitious explanations, as interpreted by the shamans. They 
have also a legend of the flood where a great ship stranded on a sub- 
merged log and broke in two; those remaining in one half being 
Thliukit and the others drifting away becoming the people of other 
nations. 

One of the last of the native chiefs was named Klo Kutz, a man of 
determined character and strong will. His people believed that he 
bore a charmed life. He was friendly to the new comers and when 
Professor George Davidson went to the head of Lynn Canal in 1869 
to observe the eclipse of the sun he entertained his party and rendered 
him great assistance. The natives, who had not believed the profes- 
sor's prediction, were terribly alarmed when it came true. They came 
to the conclusion that he was a wizard and ran away from him as fast 
as they could go. Unfortunately, contact with immoral white men and 
drunkenness and disease has brought about the decadence of this tribe 
which was recognized by early visitors as among the finest of all In- 
dians. In less than forty years they have been reduced from thousands 
to hundreds. Pneumonia, the grip and measles have always been pe- 
culiarly fatal to savages. 

Skagway, or more properly Skaguay, said to mean " the Home of 
the North Wind," is the terminus of the Inside Passage and, like the 
other large Alaskan towns, excepting Nome, challenges admiration for 
its beauty of situation. It is surrounded by an amphitheater of lofty 
mountains. It is reached by Taiya Inlet, another of the marvellous 
mountain-guarded waterways, offering continually changing views of 
snowy peaks, glittering glaciers, and numberless cascades. Skaguay 
lies at the mouth of the Skaguay River, which after its swift descent 
from the highlands flows winding through meadowlike flats and emp- 
ties into the inlet. The present permanent population of the town is 



128 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

upwards of a thousand, dwelling in comfortable houses lighted with 
electricity and surrounded with rival flower gardens. 

General Greely speaking of Skaguay, " the best-known town of 
Alaska," says: " It will live in history as the base of operations for 
thousands of adventurous prospectors during the Klondike excitement 
of 1897-1898. Skaguay is a pleasant base for excursions for the lover 
of the picturesque, the admirer of scenery, the student of natural his- 
tory or ethnographical subjects. Eeasonably near are the Chilkat and 
Chilkoot villages, with their native hats, baskets, and blankets. Over 
the White Pass, by rail, through scenery of beauty and grandeur, and 
along the way once marked by scenes of human misery and courage, 
one reached in a few hours the lake sources of the Yukon. Near by 
are also the glaciers of Davidson, Mendenhall, and others, which will 
richly repay a visit. Along the foaming rapids of the Skaguay Eiver, 
with its flowery banks, or up the winding paths to the mountain for- 
ests, the floweiy glades, and sylvan lakes, there is surprise upon sur- 
prise at the delights and beauties that hourly break in on one, while 
wandering in the delicious summer weather of the Alaskan wonder- 
land." 

Only ten or twelve years ago, during the great Klondike excitement, 
it was a city of tents. From here the trail ran through to the mining 
regions of the upper Yukon and the Klondike. In the grim story of 
the Greed for Gold the chapter devoted to the founding of Skaguay 
is perhaps the fullest of exciting incidents and many a paragraph would 
have to be devoted to the depredation of " Soapy " Smith and his band 
of outlaws who murdered and robbed the unfortunate prospector who 
had been spotted in advance. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE MIGHTY YUKON. 

SKAGUAY is tlie terminus of the White Pass and Yukon Eailway, 
which was begun in May, 1898, and finished in January, 1900. 
The possibilities of the route were foreseen by M. J. Heney, but 
he could not interest American capital, so he went to England and there 
succeeded in raising the money needed. The first twenty miles from 
Skaguay, constructed over tremendous precipices, so steep that men 
working had to be suspended from above on ropes, and blasting away 
colossal cliffs, cost an average of one hundred thousand dollars a mile. 
All the materials had to be brought from Seattle at enormous expense. 
Thirty-five hundred men were employed in its construction, and in spite 
of the rigors of the mountain climate only thirty died from accident 
or disease. At one time, however, the report of the rich gold-strike 
having arrived, fifteen hundred of the men drew their pay and deserted. 
In the one hundred and eleven miles to White Horse the road passes 
through only one tunnel, although it climbs to such giddy heights above 
the valley that the trees along the foaming stream look like bushes. 
There is a steel cantilever bridge which is two hundred and fifteen 
feet high. Twenty miles up from Skaguay is the summit of the pass 
and here the Canadian and American boundaries meet with all the 
attendant annoyances of customs inspection. The little pond that 
flashes sapphire near the station, perhaps four thousand feet above 
the sea, is regarded as one of the sources of the mighty Yukon. The 
train passes several of these storage lakes; fii'st. Lake Lindemann, 
which is seven miles long and half a mile wide, connected by a brawling 
stream three-quarters of a mile long and perhaps a himdred feet wide, 
with Lake Bennett, which is twenty-seven miles long, though not more 



130 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

tliau two miles wide, and the mountains across are nearly, if not quite, 
a mile high. They are of almost solid iron and give a peculiar rose 
color to the distance. 

At Caribou Crossing one is told great stories of the days when 
droves of thousands of caribou passed here on their way to their feed- 
ing-ground through the hills and valleys of the Stewart, Klondike, and 
other rivers. The herd has been known to take ninety days at the rate 
of a thousand a day, sometimes even more, so that their track was 
five miles in width. Packs of wolves hung on their skirts and quickly 
despatched such as were lamed or weak. In many cases they proved 
the salvation of half-starving miners. The Crossing is now a lonely, 
desolate hamlet, where in the old days there must have been more 
activity than now, though there is some traffic by boat with the Atlin 
mining district which is reached by a chain of beautiful lakes set like 
jewels in the mountains. The saw- mill at the head of Lake Bennett 
used to furnish boards for this river traffic at the rate of one hundred 
dollars a thousand feet. 

The traveller has a chance during the trip to see the great caiion 
which was one of the passages most dreaded by the early Klondike 
gold-questers. The sides are perpendicular walls of dark basalt, rising 
one or two hundred feet, and crowned with sombre spruces that climb 
the mountain's sides. In five-eighths of a mile the river drops thirty 
feet, rushing at the rate of fifteen miles an hour between huge gray 
boulders which dash the foam in huge sheets and whirlpools. 

Before reaching White Horse, rapids no less dangerous and treach- 
erous are also exhibited to the admiring tourist. 

All along the railwaj^ there are pleasant and successful looking set- 
tlements where immigrants have started homes supported by hunting, 
fishing and farming. The summer, though short, allows the growth 
of many vegetables and a marvellous growth of rich and succulent 
grass. 

White Horse is a new town, built principally of wood, housing fif- 
teen hundred or more inhabitants, most of whom are prosperous, and 



THE MIGHTY YUKON. 133 

see to it that the town is kept in perfect order. In the vicinity are rich 
copper mines which the railwaj' renders available. 

Steamboats leave White Horse for Dawson three times a week in 
suromer, the trip taking two days. The distance is three hundred and 
fifty miles. After river navigation is closed six-horse stages or four- 
horse sleighs make the trip in six days. As in all rivers, at least in 
their upper reaches, the channel shifts from side to side, and there 
are many changing sandbars where a boat is likely to go agi'ound. The 
Lewes-Yukon flows through Lake Kluk-tassi or Lebarge, famous for 
its grayling and whitefish. This is thirty-two miles long and three and 
a half miles wide, with gray cliffs and colunms of red rocks, adorned 
with a single island. The sweeping slopes are heavily wooded. Shortly 
after leaving the lake the banks of the river contract to less than five 
hundred feet and the stream pours swiftly among five huge columns 
of stone, giving the rapids its name of " the Five Fingers." 

The Pelley River, rising in the Pelley Mountains, is joined at the 
old Hudson Bay station of Selkirk by the Lewes, which drains a num- 
ber of lakes, both of them being frequently reinforced by affluents 
draining other valleys, and there form the Yukon, which, after flowing 
twenty-three hundred miles, empties into Bering Sea in the far and 
frozen north. Any one interested in Alaska should certainly read 
Schwatka's account of his famous descent of this, the fourth largest 
river on the continent. At Selkirk the great river cuts through the 
mountains and offers the most magnificent scenery for one hundred 
and fifty miles. 

Dawson is the capital of the Yukon territory, and being the financial 
and social centre of the Klondike region has attained eminence as a 
city. It has enormous storehouses for the transportation companies; 
it has banks and clubs, churches and library, hospitals and newspapers ; 
good water works, but as yet poor sewerage. The city extends for 
about a mile along the river and is built back to the hill. The streets 
are wide and well cared for. Frame or log houses prevail, the uncer- 
taintv of foundation on frozen soil being adverse either to brick or 



134 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

plastered bouses. Many of the roofs are covered with soil to a con- 
siderable depth and in siimmer these are gay with greenery or with 
brilliant flowers. A visitor in August is likely to be amazed at the 
display of vines and blooms, making the whole town seem like one 
great flower garden sloping up toward the hills. The public school- 
house cost fifty thousand dollars; the governor's mansion, which was 
built of British Coliunbia fir and most luxuriantly furnished, was des- 
troyed by fire in 1907. The governor's private office is now in the 
great administration building which is situated in the midst of a small 
park. The place is rather strictly governed, order being maintained 
for the ten thousand inhabitants by the famous Northwest ]\Iounted 
Police. 

From Dawson one can make excursions, perhaps by automobile, to 
the Golconda which served to create this metropolis in the midst of 
the frozen wilderness. The rich placers along the little streams that 
helped to feed the upper Yukon, typified by the Klondike, or Tron- 
Dieuck, which has given its name to the whole district and almost 
eclipsed Alaska itself, were speedily exhausted and had not expensive 
systems of hydraulic mining been introduced by the syndicates and 
combined companies, Dawson would have been deserted like so many 
other mushroom towns. 

G-eorge Carmack, with two Indian brothers of his wife, was one 
day in August, 1896, fishing at the mouth of the Klondike Eiver. 
They strack Bonanza Creek, and on prospecting washed out twelve 
dollars from their first pan. They immediately staked claims. On 
the site of Dawson they built a raft and floated down the river to 
Forty Mile Creek to file their claim. The first year three hundred 
thousand dollars were taken out. The yield in 1900 had risen to twenty- 
two million two hundred and seventy-five thousand; since then it has 
been steadily diminishing. 

The traveller with plenty of time may take steamship at Dawson 
for the great trip down the Yukon to its mouth. Forty-Mile, which 
should have borne its native name of Chetondeg, was the first mining 



THE MIGHTY YUKON. 135 

camp on the Yukon. It even boasted of an opera house, bnt the Klon- 
dike strike depopiilated it. It has still some importance as the mining 
interests in the neighborhood are dependent on it for supplies. The 
source of the mighty Tanana River, the greatest tributary of the Yukon, 
having been navigated by steamboat for seven hundred miles, is not 
far away from the source of Forty-Mile. Fifty miles farther down 
the river, at the junction of the now famous Mission, is Eagle, the 
first town in Alaska proper. It has a population of several hundred 
people and is likely to grow in importance as soon as it is connected 
by railway, as it is now by telegraph, with Valdez, at the head of 
Prince William Sound. Companies of American soldiers are generally 
stationed at Fort Egbert and the presence of the officers and their 
wives gives the place a pleasant society. Although it is in the vicin- 
ity of the Arctic Circle, and more than three hundred miles from 
the coast, the inhabitants point with pride to their native vegetables, 
which attain great luxuriance by having the sun all day and all night 
during the short simimer. Here one might if one pleased leave the 
steamship and return to the coast by the government trail, following 
the telegraph posts and crossing the wonderful Chugatch mountains. 

Circle City, so named because of its proximity to the Arctic Circle, 
is hardly a city now, though before the Klondike days the discovery 
of gold on Birch Creek, a few i^es away, attracted more than a thou- 
sand miners. The most northerly point on the Yukon is at Port Yukon, 
established by the Hudson Bay Company in 1847, first at the mouth of 
the Porcupine River, which is navigable for light draft steam-boats 
for one hundred miles. It used to take two years to reach this place 
from York Factory on Hudson Bay, four thousand miles to the east. 
It was formerly a great centre for the fur trade among the Indians, 
but as that trade diminished there was nothing to keep it alive and 
now what is of chief interest is the lonely graveyard, said to be the 
only one in the Arctic Circle. 

The river below Dawson is often called the Upper Ramparts and 
here is the finest scenery in Alaska, the stream being half a mile wide 



136 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

and flowing between lofty banks. Then for two hundred miles it winds 
through " the Flats," sometimes there dividing into several channels 
with sluggi-sh current and offering great obstacles to the pilots from 
the sliifting bars. It has been estimated that the islands thus formed 
are as many as ten thousand in number and many of these are covered 
with a dense growth of cottonwood, birch and spruce trees. The valley 
widens out into a comparatively level plain, in some places a hundred 
miles from escarpment to escarpment. Many travellers are wearied 
by the monotony, but others find a great charm in the wide spaces and 
the silence, the distant views of cloudlike mountains, occasional glimpses 
of Indian or Eskimo settlements as the steamship approaches the shore. 

The third great division of the river is also called the Eamparts. 
Here it again contracts into a narrow swift current, in some places 
shooting down at an incline of more than twenty feet to the mile. The 
town of Rampart, founded by Captain Mayo in 1873, was formerly the 
headquarters of the Third Judicial District of Alaska ; it has lost some 
of its importance but has a charm all its own. On the bluff runs the 
long winding street with log houses having the characteristic earth- 
and-flower covered roofs. It has a population of about four hundred 
and is the centre of trade for the Minook mining regions, which in 1906 
produced three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, lying toward the 
south. On the other side of the river and half a mile away the Gov- 
ernment maintains a successful agricultural station which has proved 
that grain can ripen there year after year, while potatoes, cabbages, 
peas and other vegetables thrive wonderfully. Though the winter tem- 
perature sometimes reaches seventy degrees below zero the climate is 
not so severe as in Minnesota because blizzards are unknown. 

"Within a day's sail of Rampart, down at the junction of the great 
River Tanana is the town of Tanana, sometimes called Weare. It is 
regarded as the most beautiful place on the Yukon, being situated on 
a high intervale with a magnificent \aew of wide spreading waters. 
Cities at the junction of great rivers have always a peculiarly inspiring 
charm. Tanana has wide streets and the log houses, all adorned with 



THE MIGHTY YUKON. 137 

summer blooms, are set far back embowered in lovely colors. Adjoin- 
ing Tanana is Fort Gibson, established in 1900. It is garrisoned by 
two companies of United States Infantry and a company of the Signal 
Corps. It would be no exile for a man to be stationed there even in 
winter, for the long nights are made gay by all sorts of athletic sports 
and the summers are a dream of delight — a clear sparkling atmos- 
phere perfumed with myriads of roses. 

From Tanana one may make a side excursion up the Tanana River 
to the fine new town of Fairbanks, which is one of the largest centres 
of population in Alaska. In 1898 Mr. Alfred H. Brooks, one of the 
ablest attaches of the United States Geological Survey, predicted that 
gold would be found in the valley of this great river. Four years later 
Felix Pedro, following the indications, made the first discovery and 
by the autumn of the next year eight hundred men were staking claims 
in the various streams that are tributary to it. The district and prin- 
cipal camp were named Fairbanks, after the Vice President of the 
United States. By 1906 the output of gold had reached more than nine 
millions ; its trade alone in 1907 had attained a volume of more than 
two millions, and that year a disastrous strike occurred. It was at- 
tended with great violence and put a temporary end to the prosperity 
of the place. 

The town of Chena, although situated at the junction of the Chena 
and the Tanana, at the head of na\'igation for large steamships, has 
not kept pace with Fairbanks for the reason that it is eight or nine 
miles farther away from the gold-producing creeks. 

The river is open generally for five months — from about the middle 
of May until the middle of October. From Chena one can go to Fair- 
banks by the Tanana Valley Eailway; this also connects with the 
principal mines. A railway, possibly two, will soon connect it with 
the coast. Even now one can ride comfortably in summer, at least 
from Fairbanks to Valdez, in a little more than a week. That the rail- 
road is needed is shown by the fact that over the forty-five miles al- 
ready constructed as many as fifty thousand passengers are carried in 



138 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

a single season, while the freight transported amounts to fifteen thou- 
sand tons at a present cost of fifty-eight cents a ton per mile. When 
the material for the railway was first brought — some of it from a 
distance of six thousand miles — the local freight rate was nearly six 
times as much. 

Fairbanks is one of the marvels of the North. It is a well-built town 
with a permanent population of upwards of four thousand. The town 
is lighted by electricity, a central steam plant heats the business section 
and many private houses. An excellent telephone service extends not 
only throughout the city, but also into seven adjacent towns and even 
to the mines in the neighboring valleys. There is a full water supply, 
enabling the fire district to boast of fifteen or more streams at one 
hundred and forty pounds pressure. There are three banks, each main- 
taining an expert assayer. Opposite the city, on Garden Island, on 
the left bank of the river, and connected by two substantial bridges, 
are situated five large saw mills which exploit the native timber, which 
consists of poplar, spruce, hemlock and birch, rafted down from the 
upper reaches of the river. Here also are the foundries and the ter- 
minals of the railway. 

There are twelve hotels, two daily papers, printed on cylinder 
presses, a weekly and a quarterly, two generously managed hospitals, 
and five churches, a large theater, clubs and other adjuncts to instruc- 
tion and amusement. The four-year course at the Fairbanks high 
school admits to Washington State University by certificate. 

Within a few miles of Fairbanks more than thirty thousand acres 
of productive land have been preempted according to the United States 
homestead laws and the productiveness of the soil is amazing to all 
visitors. This is especially true of the region round the Hot Springs 
in the lower valley of the Tanana, where all sorts of delicious vegetables 
are raised and the hay crop is enormous. The town is governed by a 
council of seven members and a courtesy mayor. The finances are 
provided by various forms of taxation and assessment, and in 1906 
the budget amounted to almost a hundred thousand dollars, which 



THE MIGHTY YUKON. 139 

supports the fire department, the police, the streets and the hos- 
pitals. 

During the last long reaches of the Yukon through low-lying plains 
the principal town to interest the traveller is Nulato, of tragic memory. 
It is about three hundred miles below Tanana. Here occurred bloody 
encounters with savage natives and more than once the fortification 
there was destroyed and all its garrison murdered. 

Nulato is within the United States Eeindeer Reserve and is one of 
the headquarters for the herd. These are the result of the application 
made by the Jesuit director of the Roman Catholic Mission, who, in 
1899, wrote Dr. Sheldon Jackson, assuring him that there was plenty 
of deer moss within sixty miles of that place. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

EEINDEER AND ESKIMOS. 

THE story of the introduction of the reindeer into Alaska is most 
interesting. They have long been comparatively abundant on 
the other side of Bering Strait but had never been brought to 
Alaska, nor had any serious attempt ever been made to domesticate 
the caribou. On the Asian continent his value had long been recog- 
nized. Like the banyan tree of the Tropics this product of the North 
is useful in every part to the native. His flesh is nutritious and espe- 
cially rich iu carbon. The mill; is used for drinking and for cheese ; the 
horns are utilized for making knife handles, or when scraped for form- 
ing ammonia ; the skins are invaluable for clothing and for boots ; even 
the entrails are valuable. The animals feed on the moss of the tundra 
which has been repeatedly pointed out as sufficient to support ten mil- 
lions of them; they find it for themselves, scratching up the snow 
with their sharp hoofs. They require no grass, hay or grain. As car- 
riers across the snow they are far superior to the Eskimo or malamute 
dogs, and more reliable, a team often being able to make one hundred 
miles a day. 

Dr. Sheldon Jackson, Commissioner of Education for Alaska, con- 
ceived the plan of importing a sufficient number of these reindeer from 
Siberia, together with a number of Laplanders, Finns and Norwegians 
who were acquainted with their habits and management, so as to train 
the native Eskimo in the use of the animals. It was felt by him that 
as the native population was becoming more and more desperate owing 
to diminution of their natural food supply something should be done 
to support the unfortunates. With great difficulty he prevailed upon 



REINDEER AND ESKIMOS. 141 

Congress to appropriate a fund for this purpose. His plan was to 
introduce at each 6f the thirty-nine schools scattered through the frozen 
north, from the Yukon to the end of the Aleutian Islands, a nucleus 
of a herd which should be under the care of reliable natives selected 
by the teachers. He assured the Government that " reindeer entrusted 
to the ordinary individual savage would disappear within a twelve- 
month after they had been given to him." So he inaugurated the pol- 
icy of lending small herds to missionary societies, the Government 
reserving the right, after a term of not less than three years, to call 
ui)oii the mission station for the same number of deer that composed 
the herd leased, being regarded as " in the nature of an outfit of indus- 
trial apparatus." Knowing the natural increase of the reindeer he 
predicted that a herd of five hundred ought to furnish an increase of 
two hundred each spring. In 1891 sixteen head of reindeer were intro- 
duced as an experiment; by natural increase and by the accretion of 
others imported from Siberia, in two years the number had risen to 
fourteen hundred and sixty-six. The next year one hundred and sixty- 
one were imported from Siberia, and in spite of some losses by the 
next year they had increased to more than two thousand. At the pres- 
ent time the herds are estimated to amount to more than ten times 
that number, some under Federal control, others loaned to missions 
for the pui-poses of industrial training, and still others kept at special 
stations for emergency purposes. 

How useful they may be in such circumstances is well shown by a 
report made to the Government by the Honorable John G. Brady, the 
former missionary Governor of Alaska, in 1899. After showing how 
unjust many persons and even newspapers had been in I'eviling the 
chief promoter of the scheme, and calling it a fad, he goes on to say : 

" The purchase of several hundred of these anhnals in Norway and 
Lapland and their shipment across the Atlantic and the continent and 
by steamship again from Seattle to Haines Mission, and the dying of 
a large proportion of them at that point, and all the subsequent evils, 
had nothing to do with the problems of the introduction of domestic 



142 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

reindeer into western and northern Alaska for the use of the Eskimos. 
When editors and writers raise the cry of ' failure ' and ' fad ' they 
simply show that they are not acquainted with the facts, or, if they 
are, that they are prejudiced and are not willing to stick to the truth. 

" At the very time the cry of starvation was raised in the newspapers 
concerning the miners on the Klondike, another cry went up that a 
large number of whalers at Point Barrow were caught in the ice and 
unless they got relief many would starve to death before spring. Ac- 
cordingly tlie revenue cutter Bear was outfitted and sent to give relief. 
She landed a party of three officers — Lieutenants Jarvis and Berthoff 
and Dr. Call. Under conditions that try men's souls, they made their 
way from the spot where they were landed at Cape Vancouver, a long 
distance south of the Yukon River, around the margin of the coast, till 
they came to the missionary reindeer station at Port Clarence. Here 
Mr. W. T. Lopp and the native Eskimo, Antisarlook, at the earnest 
entreaty of Lieutenant Jarvis, turned over their herds of reindeer to 
him, amounting in all to four hundred and thirty-seven animals, and 
the natives not only parted with their animals, but volunteered to go 
with Lieutenant Jarvis to drive them to Point Barrow. 

" After several fearful weeks they reached that station and gave 
immediate relief to those hungry men and kept them alive until the 
icepack broke up. About a hundi'ed of these animals had to be slaugh- 
tered. Surely there was no ' fad ' about reindeer at this point. The 
food they afforded kept two hundred souls alive. ^Vho has ever seen 
a single notice of this event to the credit of the reindeer, the missionary 
or the native? Attention was called last year to the heroism of the 
above-mentioned officers. It will surely compare well with any act 
of braverj' that has occurred within recent years, and we think thati 
Congress should not allow another session to pass without giving them 
due recognition." 

Congress ultimately granted Lieutenant Jarvis a medal for gallant 
conduct. 

The imported Lapps and such natives as took hold of the industry 



REINDEER AND ESKIMOS. 143 

have prospered to such an extent that some of them have accumulated 
herds of more than a hundred, and one woman, Mary An-dre-wuk, 
known as the Reindeer Queen, had in 1905 more than three hundred. 
The advantage to the natives in inspiring in them self-respect and a 
sense of independence justified the experiment even had it not proved 
successful in other respects. It is interesting to know that reindeer 
moss was recommended as a suitable food for human beings by an 
edict of Gustavus III of Sweden. The taste of it is slightly pungent 
or acrid, but rather agreeable. The reindeer require no attention: 
they find their own food, scraping it up from beneath the snow with 
their sharp hoofs. They do not thrive on grass, hay or grain, though 
in summer they like grass. An interesting book might be written on 
the experiences of those who drove bargains with the native tribes of 
Siberia for reindeer. They had pretty exciting times. Finally the 
Eussian Government forbade their exportation but not before the in- 
dustry was well established. 

Had it not been for the coast mountains the Yukon might have en- 
tered Norton Sound after a straight course of less than a hundred 
miles from Nulato ; instead it skirts these mountains, which are prob- 
ably packed with gold, and flows almost directly south, part of the way 
running parallel to the great Kuskokwim, and then turning north, de- 
bouches into Bering Sea by at least seven mouths. The delta is about 
a hundred miles wide and the immense quantity of river water pouring 
out into the sea makes it shallow and fresh for a long distance. Ther 
whole region where it ends its course is densely infested with the blood- 
thirstiest mosquitoes in the world. A sufferer from their torments 
writes thus feelingly: " Breeding here, as they do in the vast network 
of slough and swamp, they are able to rally round and to infest the 
wake and progress of the explorer beyond all adequate description, 
and language is unable to portray the misery and annoyance accom- 
panying their presence. It will naturally be asked how do the natives 
bear this? They too are annoyed and suffer, but it should be borne 
in mind that their bodies are anointed with rancid oil and certain am- 



144 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

moniacal vapors, peculiar to their garments from constant wear, have 
a repellent power whicli even the mosquitoes, blood-thirsty as they 
are, are hardly equal to meet. . . . 

" The traveller who exposes his bare eyes or face here loses his nat- 
ural appearance; his eyelids swell up and close, and his face becomes 
one mass of lumps and fiery pimples. Mosquitoes torture the Indian 
dogs to death, especially if one of these animals, by mange or other- 
wise, loses an inconsiderable portion of its thick hairy covering, and 
even drive the bear and deer into the water." 

This is the barren region of the Coast Esldmos, who, living apart 
from the whites, have been able to preserve better their integrity than 
those nearer the settlements. 

The Eskimo or Innuit are among the most interesting people of 
Alaska, forming about sixty per cent, of the whole native population. 
According to the census of 1890 there were about fourteen thousand 
of them, mostly settled permanently along the coast of the Bering Sea, 
and very few, less than one-fifth, within the Arctic Circle. They are 
by nature " peaceful and docile, trustful and generous." General 
Greely believes that they are gradually disappearing before the ad- 
vance of the white men, whose treatment of them, as of all the native 
races, he calls " disgraceful to a nation claiming to be civilized, human- 
itarian or Christian." He says: 

" In general, contact with the white man has steadily tended to 
degeneration among the four principal tribes of Alaska, though at 
times there have been spasmodic and usually fruitless efforts on the 
part of the United States to correct the most flagrant and degrading 
violations of personal rights and public decency. ... In a journey 
of over two thousand miles through Alaska, the writer discussed the 
situation with a dozen or more missionaries at nine separate stations 
and representing six religious bodies. Every one answered in the neg- 
ative when asked if the natives had improved in honesty, the men in 
industry, the women in chastity, and the youth in promise of higher 
morality. 



REINDEER AND ESKIMOS. 145 

" In miuiug towns and camps the saloon and dance-house, which 
foster in men indulgence in liquor and offer to young girls the allure- 
ments of finery and a life of apparent ease, are factors potent in de- 
generation and so attractive in appearance that only few natives with- 
stand them. At remote points traders, fishermen and whalers have been 
only too often guilty of gross misconduct destructive of the moral char- 
acter and physical health of the unfortunate native." 

General Greely thinks that the Eskimos have suffered more than 
any other Alaskan race by contact with the white man: " Vitally 
changed conditions of life have seriously affected the Eskimo, who 
find their means of subsistence largely destroyed, their habitat in- 
vaded, and new methods of life forced upon them. Decimated by 
epidemic diseases introduced by the whites, victims of unprincipled 
liquor dealers, often maltreated by vicious traders, and exploited by 
the unscrupulous, the steady degeneration of these hospitable, merrj'- 
hearted and simple-minded people is apparently a matter of time. 
The introduction of the reindeer, the efforts to teach industrial methods 
and the rendering of medical aid to the suffering, are the only redeem- 
ing and hopeful features of the Eskimo situation at present." 

The origin of the Eskimo is a mooted question, the balance of opin- 
ion swaying to the conclusion that they did not come from Asia but 
spread from the East. Their characteristic canoe or kayak, called by 
the Eussians bidarka, is precisely like that used by the Greenland 
Eskimo. Their skin parka, or outside garment, worn alike by men, 
women and children, is also characteristic of the whole race. The 
Alaskan Eskimo are divided into various tribes such as the Kopagmute, 
Nunatagmute, Mahlemute, Unaligmute, and others, all ending in mtttfe 
and hav-ing similar manners and customs. They have no definitely 
recognized chief but in each settlement generally one man, a successful 
trader or fisherman, called the umalik or spokesman, holds some influ- 
ence among them, not comparable, however, to that of the shaman 
who takes a great part in their festivities and stimulates their super- 
stitions. They are skilful fishermen and hunters. Fish they catch 



146 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

with hooks and nets; they spear seal on the ice, their implements made 
of spruce or larch headed with stone or bone or walrus teeth. Parties 
of a hundred or more natives, all in their kayaks, have been seen silently 
and in perfect order going out to hunt the beluga or white whale. At 
a signal given by the leader, the kayaks paddle to seaward of the school 
and yelling and shrieking and splashing with paddles and spears, 
frighten the belugas ashore. In former days they would sometimes 
secure as many as a hundred in a single day. Wounded whales would 
be kept afloat by means of inflated bladders made of young sealskins. 

A feast would follow the slaughter of the beluga, the natives liking the 
blubber and meat uncooked, or at least parboiled, with whale or seal 
oil as a sauce. The skins they tan with putrefied fish roe. In summer 
they do their cooking out of doors and live in log houses roofed with 
skins and open in front, without chimneys. Their winter houses are 
half underground huts, often constructed of whale ribs against which 
are piled logs of drift wood. Outside of this another wall is built, either 
of stones or logs, the intervals filled with earth or rubble; the whole 
structure is then covered with sods, leaving a small opening at the top 
which can be closed by a frame holding a thin, translucent seal skin. 
The entrance is a passage ten or twelve feet in length which must be 
" negotiated " on hands and knees. Inside the entrance visitor or 
fresh air is barred by a bear or reindeer skin curtain. In the centre 
is the fireplace, the smoke from which is supposed to find its way out 
of the roof aperture, but generally gets into the eyes of the inmates. 
The floor may be planked and the family sleep on a sort of divan, cov- 
ered with mats and skins, which is built along the sides. In case two 
families inhabit one house the sleeping-places are separated by mat- 
curtains or a conventional piece of wood, which sei'v^es the imagination 
as a barrier. 

Each village has an assembly house called kashga which is often as 
much as sixty feet square and twenty or thirty feet high. A raised 
platform sometimes made in three tiers runs around the sides and the 
general fireplace is very large. Here are carried on the common labors 



REINDEER AND ESKIMOS. 147 

of the natives, their councils, their feasts and festivals, and here sleep 
the adult unmarried males. Their hot baths also are performed in 
its superheated and fetid atmosphere. 

They love to masquerade and their dances are often accomplished 
in masks. Sometimes the women appear in male garments, wearing 
mustaches with bead pendants instead of labrets in the under lip. 
Sometimes the men appear as women. Their only musical instrument 
is a bladder drum which is beaten with a thump and a pause, then two 
thumps and a pause, like a slow waltz. This is accompanied by weird 
singing. The dancing consists wholly of contortions without moving 
from the spot. This posturing, which displays suppleness, never de- 
picts anything indecent or inmiodest. The men wear on these occa- 
sions white reindeer skin and summer boots, the women their ordinary 
dress with the addition of bracelets and beads. 

Lieutenant L. Zagoskin of the Russian Navy thus describes an enter- 
tainment given by the Eskimo women : — 

" We entered the kashga by the common passage and found the 
guests already assembled but of the hostesses nothing was to be seen. 
On three sides of the apartment stone lamps were lighted, the fire- 
hole was covered with boards, one of them having a circular opening 
through which the hostesses were to make their appearance. Two 
other burning lamps were placed in front of the fire-hole. The guests 
who formed the chorus began to sing to the sound of the drum, two 
men keeping them in order by beating time with sticks adorned with 
wolfs' tails and gulls' wings. Thus a good half hour passed by. Of 
the song my interpreter told me that it consisted of pleasantry directed 
against the women ; that it was evident they had nothing to give, as 
they had not shown themselves for so long a time. Another song 
praised the housewifely accomplishments of some woman whose ap- 
pearance was impatiently expected with a promised trencher of the 
mixed mess of reindeer fat and berries. No sooner was this song fin- 
ished than the woman appeared and was received with the greatest 
enthusiasm. The dish was set before the men, and the woman retreated 



148 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

amid vociferous compliments on her culinary skill. She was followed 
by another woman. The beating of drums increased in violence and 
the wording of the song was changed. Standing up in the centre of 
the circle the woman began to relate, in mimicry and gesture, how she 
obtained the fat, how she stored it in various receptacles, how she 
cleansed and melted it, and then placing a kantag on her head she 
invited the spectators with gestures to approach. The song went on, 
while eagerness to partake of the promised luxury lighted up the faces 
of the crowd. At last the wooden spoons were distributed, one to each 
man, and nothing was heard for some time but the guzzling of the 
luscious fluid. Another woman appeared, followed by still another, 
and luxuries of all kinds were produced in quick succession and as 
quickly despatched, while the singers pointedly alluded to the praise- 
worthy Eussian custom of distributing tobacco. When the desired 
luxury had been produced a woman represented with great skill the 
various stages of stupefaction resulting from smoking and snuffing. 
All the women appeared in men's parkas." 

The return entertainment presented by the men began with a cho- 
rus sung under the tire-hole. They infoi-med the women that trap- 
ping, hunting and trade were bad and that they had nothing to do but 
sing and dance to please the women. Then an antiphonal chorus by 
the women replied that since they were so lazy that they could not get 
any food and cared for nothing but smoking and bathing, they had 
better go supperless to bed. Then the men replied that they would 
go and hunt for something. One of them appeared through the open- 
ing in the fire-hole. He was dressed in female apparel with bead pen- 
dants in his nose and with fringes of wolverine tails and beads and 
bracelets, and this one mimicked the actions of the women. Then 
throwing off his parka he gave a vivid representation of how seated 
in his swift kayak he pursued the maklak seal. A whole boiled seal 
was then served. Others in like manner represented a reindeer hunt, 
and all sorts of domestic exercises. Sometimes practical jokes are 
played and are always taken in good spirit and never resented. 



REINDEER AND ESKIMOS. 151 

The autumual festival iu honor of deceased kinsfolk is thus described 
by Mr. Ivan Petrof, who is an authority on Alaskan etlmology : — 

*' At sunset the men assemble iu the kashga. and. after a hurried 
bath, ornament each other by tracing various figures with a mixture 
of oil and charcoal on the naked back. Two boys, who for this occa- 
sion are respectively named Raven and Hawk, are in attendance, mix- 
ing the paint, etc. Finally the faces also are thickly smeared, and 
then the females are summoned into the kashga. After a brief lapse 
of time a noise is heard, sluieks and yells, snorting and roaring, and 
the disguised men. emerging from the fii'e-hole, show their heads above 
the floor, blowing and puffing like seals. It is impossible to distinguish 
any human figTire. as some are crawling with their feet foremost, others 
running on their hands and feet, while the head of another is seen 
protruding between the legs of a companion. They all cling together 
and move in concert, like one immense snake. A number of the men 
wear masks representing the heads of animals, and the unsightly beings 
advance upon the spectators, but chiefly endeavoring to frighten the 
women, who have no means of escaping molestation except by buying 
off the actors with presents. Knowing what was before them, they 
have brought the kantags or wooden bowls full of delicious morsels — 
beluga blubber, walrus meat, whale-oiled berries, and other dainties. 
When each of the maskers has eaten and filled a bowl or two to take 
home, they indulge iu a pantomime and gesture play of a highly gro- 
tesque character. After completing the ceremony in the kashga the 
maskers frequently visit some of the dwellings and receive gifts in 
each, the whole performance ending with singing, dancing and feasting 
in the kashga." 

At one of these annual memorial feasts witnessed by Zagoskin there 
were seventy persons present and the gifts that were to be distributed 
in memory of the seven who had died consisted of spears, arrows, vari- 
ous garments, seal skins, paddles, knives, hatchets, rings, mats and 
other articles. Shamans or tuugaks acted as masters of the ceremony 
and furnished the special songs. Then came the dinner, which consisted 



152 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

of mountains of blubber, several boiled seals, and quantities of dried 
fish. There were as many as fifteen different dishes or courses. 

Another quaint festivity is in honor of the spirits of the sea, which 
they call ingiali. This is performed with the bladders of all the crea- 
tures killed during the year. During the first days of December these 
bladders — of fish, rats, mice, squirrels, and seals, bear or deer — are 
inflated, painted gaudy colors and hung up in the kashga. The men 
likewise contribute curiously carved figures of birds and fishes, some- 
times with ingeniously contrived eyes, heads or wings. These figures 
are manipulated all day long and in the meantime are well cured in 
smoke, amid the chanting of melancholy songs. On the last day they 
are taken down, attached to painted sticks and carried down to the 
sea, where they are weighted with stones and set afloat. The people 
watch them and from their behavior the shamans are enabled to cal- 
culate the prosperity of the coming year. 

The daily customs of the Alaska Eskimo are quaint and curious. 
The unmarried men sleep in the kashga, some on reindeer skins, others 
on bare planks, covering themselves with their parkas in lieu of paja- 
mas, with their trousers for pillows. About eight o'clock in the morn- 
ing the first person who happens to awake lights the oil lamp. By 
and by the women bring in the breakfast. After breakfast the men 
attend to their various duties — in looking after their traps or going 
with a dog-team for wood ; the boys and girls set snares for small game. 
Early in the afternoon the men return from their work. Their wives 
help them get off their wet clothes, unharness the dogs and look after 
the fish or the seal that they have brought home. After dinner the 
bath is in order. A great fire is lighted inside the kashga, which is 
speedily heated to suffocation. The men remove their garments, lash 
themselves with alder branches and dance about, and when they are 
in a vigorous perspiration they lather themselves with what serves 
them for soap. This they wash off with fresh water and fling it into 
the four corners. Then they rush out into the snow or jump into a 
river if one be near and free from ice. Then the opening of the kashga 



REINDEER AND ESKIMOS. 153 

is removed so that a little ventilation may enter and the men sit around 
on the platform as if they had had a Turkish bath. 

When a native is ill the medicine man is called to drive out the evil 
spirit. The process is thus described : — 

" In one of the dwellings sits the patient, suffering from fever and 
rheumatic pains; before him are placed two lighted oil lamps, and a 
parka is dravm over his head, while two shamans or tungaks, one 
standing on each side, alternately sing and beat the dram. Behind 
them, faintly visible in the semidarkness, is the head of an old woman 
who, while imitating the croaking of a raven, rubs and poimds the back 
of the patient. If the pain does not cease the old woman changes her 
tactics and also her voice, imitating successively the chattering of mag- 
pies, the barking of dogs, and the howling of wolves, and if all this 
be in vain she throws herself upon the sufferer, cuffing and beating him 
until she makes him forget one pain in another, while the tungaks sing 
louder and louder and the drums give forth a deafening noise. At last 
she snatches the parka from the patient's head, yells repeatedly, and 
points to the roof; the cover of the smoke-hole is removed and the 
evil spirit which has caused the sickness escapes amid the beating of 
drums and the triumphant cry, ' He is gone ! He is gone ! Ugh ! Ugh ! ' 
and the old woman, her task accomplished, collapses into a mass of 
rags upon the floor. It is the third spirit driven out of this patient 
— how many more dwell within him nobody can tell; if it was the 
last he will soon mend, but, on the other hand, if not the last there will 
be more chanting, more drumming, more cuffing and more payments 
to the cunning tungaks, until the sick man either dies or can pay no 
more. The tungaks claim that their scheme and skill consist in dis- 
covering what spirit infests the sick man, and to drive it out they do 
not consider difficult at all." 



CHAPTER XV. 

ST. Michael's and NoirE. 

THE steamships plying the Yukou, unless they get stuck on some 
sandbar at its mouth, land passengers about sixty miles north 
of the Afun or Aphoon branch of the river at Fort St. Michael's, 
which was founded by the Russians in 1833, and still boasts the re- 
doubt and storehouse built by Mikhail Tebenkof in 1833. The Russian 
fort was attacked in 1836 by hostile Unaligmutes, who occupied the 
coast of North Sound as far down as the Yukon and up into the coun- 
try as far as the mountains. It was successfully defended, however. 
A Russian church was built here and is still maintained. St. Michael's 
is a United States Militaiy Reservation and is situated on an island 
twenty-five miles long and six or seven wide and rising to volcanic 
heights called the Shaman Mountains. Commercial and transporta- 
tion companies have been permitted to establish themselves there, and 
travellers are accommodated at a good hotel, but no liquor is permitted 
to be sold. The Eskimos bring here their beautiful carved walrus tusks, 
toy models of their kayaks and bidarkas, furs and basket ware. 

A small tug or steamer sails from here the hundred and eleven 
miles across Norton Sound to Nome, where we may have the exciting 
experience of being landed in the surf, perhaps getting thoroughly 
wet in the icy waters of the roadstead. Few of the early gold-seekers 
escaped that baptism of the north. At the present time when pas- 
sengers are desirous of lauding at Nome they are transferred to a 
stout flat-bottomed barge which is hauled in by a cable till it grounds. 
Then a cage is let down from a heavy projecting beam and when filled 
is carried over the surf to a high platform on the land. 

Mr. John Scudder McLain, who accompanied the Senatorial " Chi- 

154 



ST. MICHAEL'S AND NOME. 155 

Cha-Kos " on their memorable trip to Alaska in 1903, thus gives his 
impression of Nome : — 

" Take a low sandy beach, one without a tree within fifty miles; 
show a white line where the waves break into foam along the shore ; 
stretch along the water's edge for a mile or more a double row of frame 
buildings, most of them two stories high and facing each other; cover 
the street between with boards laid on the sand; don't be very par- 
ticular about making the street lines straight, nor insist that the street 
shall have uniform width ; let the elevation and width of the sidewalks 
be determined by chance, it produces more variety and claims closer 
attention from the pedestrian; fill the lower floors of the buildings 
along the street with business undertakings of various kinds, and the 
upper floors reserve for living purposes; throw in a liberal portion 
of places devoted to the gratification of highly developed thirsts ; fill 
the air at frequent intervals with the sounds of ragtime music ; gather 
on the sidewalk and in the narrow street groups of men who seem to 
have nothing particular to do and are doing it ; then go back from the 
first street and locate a church or two, a school house, a federal court- 
house and custom house, sprinkle around a few small buildings for 
residence purposes; fill the air with a cold drizzle and you have the 
materials out of which were obtained my first impressions of Nome, 
on the morning of July 29." 

Nome stretches along the beach almost due east and west for the 
distance of twenty-five or more city blocks from Snake River, where 
the two cemeteries are laid out. At first it consisted of a single street 
which was the beach itself, but as it grew one parallel street after an- 
other was added until now it lies on the tundra half a dozen or more 
streets back. The buildings, especially along the front, are a curious 
and picturesque jumble of residences, apartment houses, shops, saloons, 
banks, millinery establishments, churches, dance-halls, government 
buUdings, steamship and transportation offices, hospitals, and schools. 
Here one finds great heaps of coal worth almost its weight in gold, 
here an Eskimo tent. The buildings next the sea project out over the 



156 OUR NORTHERN' DOMAIN. 

water. The streets, though uominally laid out foui- square, have in 
some cases got juggled and cross at angles ; buildings have been erected 
with slight attention to what might be called registration; one may be 
a couple of feet in front of another, while still another faces a different 
point of the compass. 

There are board sidewalks not quite so well kept as the one at At- 
lantic City. In some places it is wide, then it narrows, then it curves 
and straightens itself; it is above the street; it is below the street; 
here it is well kept, here, possibly at a crossing, it is badly wrecked. 
Nome has all the conveniences of a modern city in the way of amuse- 
ments, educational and otherwise. It is connected with Seattle by cable 
and wireless and a system of long-distance telephone puts it into com- 
munication with the other mining centres of the peninsula, which may 
be reached, in simamer by automobiles or stages, and in winter by 
reindeer or dog teams and sledges. There are excellent schools serving 
a permanent population of four thousand and more. There are thx-ee 
newspapers ; a water system which is kept open in winter by a parallel 
system of steam pipes has been established. The town is brilliantly 
lighted with electricity, though owing to the price of coal the light 
comes high. The summer traffic in freight is said to amount to a hun- 
dred thousand tons. One lumber firm at Nome imports stock by the 
million feet from Puget Sound. A railway, known as the Wild Goose, 
runs north from Nome fifty miles through the river valley and, crossing 
to the headwaters of the Kruzgamepa, has its terminus at Lane's Land- 
ing on the Kuzitrin. 

One may go by boat to Tin City, three miles west of Teller, at the 
Cape Prince of Wales, where valuable tin mines have been discovered. 
This was the region where the early miners found sluicing for gold 
impossible owing to the presence of heavy gravel. They did not recog- 
nize in this enemy a masked and secret friend. It was really stream 
tin and the probabilities are that in time a good part of the twenty 
million dollars' worth of tin used in the L'nited States will be supplied 
from the Seward Peninsula. 



ST. MICHAEL'S AND NOME. 157 

The Congregational Church established a mission at Cape Prince 
of Wales in 1890 ; four years later the minister in charge was mur- 
dered by some renegade Eskimos. The murderers were promptly exe- 
cuted by the authorities of their own village. This was one of the few 
known instances of the natives of this part of Alaska ever showing 
any unprovoked lawlessness toward the whites. 

From the highest part of the Cape Prince of Wales on a clear day 
the mountains of Kamchatka can be seen, and one can not help won- 
dering how it was that the corresponding glimpses of Alaska from 
the high hills back of East Cape, rising as they do to a height of a mile, 
did not long before cause it to be surmised that the Bering Strait sep- 
arated two continents. 

From Nome one may sail directly to Seattle, a distance of nearly 
twenty-seven hundred and fifty miles. One passes not far from the 
great St. Lawrence Island, which lies about one hundred and fifty miles 
south of Bering Sea and within sight of Indian Point in Siberia, forty 
miles or so away. It is about a hundred miles long and forty miles 
wide. Its coast is lined with high cliffs which sweep up into consid- 
erable mountains in the interior, where there are a number of lakes 
connected with salmon streams. There is only one good harbor. The 
inhabitants, though they deny the fact, are descendants of Siberian 
natives, who frequently abuse them and even massacre them. Disease 
and famine in recent years have reduced the population considerably. 
It is now an interesting station for the reindeer which, with the in- 
struction of the mission school, are helping the people to be self-sup- 
porting. 

Lieutenant Maynard of the United States Navy, who visited this 
island in 1874, thus describes it : — 

" The surface is irregular and broken, consisting of hills connected 
by low flat plains, which are but a few feet above the level of the sea. 
Both the ranges of hills and the lowlands extend entirely across the 
island from north to south ; hence, when approached from either direc- 
tion, the latter are not seen at first, and the land has the appearance 



158 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

of being several separate islands. Captain Cook, who discovered it in 
1778, was thus deceived, and as he did not sail near enough after\rards 
to discover his mistake gave the supposed group the name of Cleaks 
Islands. There are no harbors, but good anchorage can be found at 
several points, with from six to eleven fathoms of water, in light 
weather or when the wind is from the land. It is covered in summer 
with grass, moss and flowers and in places a creei^ing willow grows, 
but neither trees nor shrubs of any kind. There are several lagoons 
and numerous fresh-water ponds, fed by small streams from the hiUs, 
are distributed over the plains. The greater part of the shore is a 
low sand beach, but at the southwestern end of the island and at sev- 
eral points on the northern shore, it rises into almost perpendicular 
cliffs, from one hundred to three hundred feet high. Those at the south- 
western end present a singular appearance when viewed from the 
water. The beating of the surf and the action of the water have broken 
up and worn away the material of which they are composed (talcose 
slate), leaving needles or spires, some of them one hundred feet in 
height, standing out several yards from the cliff. Deep cracks or fis- 
sures, extending from top to bottom, have also been formed in the 
cliffs, which are filled from the water's edge with solid masses of snow 
(although it was in the month of August we saw them) beautifully 
colored in many places by bird guano and reddish substance in the 
rock." 

The same writer thus describes the appearance of the natives : — 
" The men are tall and straight, without hair upon their faces except 
a slight mustache and a few scattered hairs upon the chins of the old 
men. They have black hair and eyes, and their complexion is of a very 
light copper color. Their dress consists of a kind of shirt reaching 
half way to the knee, made in some cases of tanned reindeer skin, and 
in others of bird skins (feathers outside). It fits closely around the 
neck and has a hood that can be drawn over the head, lined with the 
fur of dogs and foxes or with bird skins. It is confined at the waist 
by a belt, from which hang a sheath knife and a skin tobacco pouch. 



ST. MICHAEL'S AND NOME. 159 

Their breeches are made of tanned hair-seal skin, fitting the legs closely, 
and tied at the ankle with leather strings. They wear on their feet 
a kind of moccasin made of seal skin, with a sole of walrus hide. 

" The dress of the women is somewhat different. Their upper gar- 
ment is made of the intestines of the walrus, neatly sewed together, 
and is similar in shape to that of the men, but longer and worn without 
a belt. Beneath this they wear short drawers, reaching only to the 
knee, made of tanned seal skins. Instead of moccasins they wear a 
sort of boot, the legs of which are made of either the throat or intes- 
tines of the walrus, and the sole of walrus hide. Most of the men 
shave the crown of their heads, leaving only a rim of their hair, about 
an inch wide entirely around the head. The women do not cut their 
hair, but part it in the middle, and wear it in two braids with strings 
of beads intermixed. Their foreheads, cheeks, chins and arms are tat- 
tooed in various devices with a light blue pigment of some kind, and 
the ears of some have little notches cut in them. None of the men 
are tattooed, but many wear little strings of beads in their ears. Their 
countenances are bright and rather intelligent and both men and women 
are lively and talkative. ' ' 

A little less than half way between St. Lawrence Island and the 
Pribilofs stands the lonely island of St. Matthew. It was discovered 
and named by Bering, and rediscovered by Captain Cook, who gave it 
another name that did not live. His name for the queer promontory 
at the southeastern end was Cape Upright. This is a perpendicular 
crag fifteen hundred feet high. On the northwestern end is another 
bluff that rises to a height of sixteen hundred and seventy feet. Here 
also are clear streams and ponds filled with trout. Its only inhab- 
itants are enormous white bears, some of them as much as eight feet 
long, and innumerable birds — shags, gulls, sea-parrots, murries, chul- 
skies, eider ducks, Canada geese, plovers, and great blue cranes. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SEALS, SEA - LIONS AND WALRUS. 

THE one livmdred and seventieth degree west from Greenwich 
passes through the East Cape of Siberia, cuts through the very 
centre of St. Lawrence Island and divides the Pribilof Islands. 
Here it is interesting to make a pause and observe the habits of the 
fur-bearing seal, or, as it should properly be called, the sea-bear. The 
discovery of the islands has already been mentioned. They are now 
under the protection of the United States Government, which main- 
tains a guard over them to see that poachers do not land for the pur- 
pose of killing the few seals that are left. The cause of the tremendous 
reduction in the number of seals resorting to these islands is now uni- 
versally recognized to be pelagic fishing. As Canadian sealers were 
engaged in the destructive pursuit of the seals, as the skins were 
dressed in London and formed an important industry there, an inter- 
national conference was held in Paris in 1893; the testimony seemed 
conflicting, and the two countries agreed to limit pelagic sealing by pro- 
hibiting it at any time within sixty miles of the Pribilof Islands and 
permitting it to be followed in the rest of Bering Sea for ninety days 
following May 1. Two years later it was estimated that the herds 
of seals which numbered fully two milions — some extravagantly put 
it at five millions — in 1867 had been reduced to about 200,000. Indeed 
it was gravely suggested by Professor Huxley that it would not be 
such a very serious loss to mankind if the seals were all extirpated. 
He said, very cynically : — 

" ]\Iankind will not suffer much if the ladies are obliged to do with- 
out seal-skin jackets, and the fraction of the English, Canadian and 

100 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 161 

American population wliich lives on the seal-skin industry will be no 
worse off than the vastly greater multitude who have had to suffer 
for the vagaries of fashion times out of number. Certainly if the seals 
are to be the source of constant bickering between two nations, the 
sooner they are abolished the better." 

But President Jordan, criticising the same proposal which was put 
forward by treasury agent Joseph B. Crowley, utterly condemns it, de- 
claring that it " would necessarily involve all this inhuman waste on 
a wholesale scale and lodge the odium for it for all time on the 
Government of the United States. Besides," he adds, " it would not 
be possible totally to exterminate the race without keeping up the 
slaughter for many years, as not all the animals are pi'esent at one time 
a season. ' ' He says : " A htmted remnant must remain, which, if left 
unmolested, would restock the rookeries and reopen the whole ques- 
tion." 

The English Government, in spite of the able arguments of James G. 
Blaine, then Secretary of State, were convinced of the comparative 
harmlessness of pelagic sealing ; thus the fate of the wonderful rooker- 
ies was sealed. Once before they had been threatened with extinction, 
just as those in the South Pacific were exterminated by a treatment 
utterly cruel, selfish and blind. The number of seals killed on the Pri- 
bilof Islands was carefully regulated and the Aleuts who were colonized 
on them were the only person allowed to do the driving. Although 
one competent observer had reported to the Russian Government that 
he had seen a school of fur seals covering the surface of the ocean for 
two nautical miles, the determined onslaught of pelagic fishenuen did 
not begin to take serious proportions imtil the early seventies. Tlien 
the reckless way in which they were pursued had its full and fell effect. 
It was universally admitted by those engaged in the business that not 
one out of ten seals killed or wounded was obtained before they sank, 
and as it is impossible to tell the sex of the creatures when they are 
in the water a large proportion of the catch, as well as those lost, con- 
sisted of the cows and their unborn young. 



162 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

It has been claimed by the opiDonents of the seals that the damage 
they did to the fishing interest by the enormous amount of fish they 
consumed more than offset the advantage of keeping their rookeries 
intact. But on the other hand it was argued that the seals never went 
into the great depths where cod and such fish live, but subsist on dog- 
fish and similar surface fish, thus doing immense good in keeping down 
the insatiate horde of those harriers of the deep. It has been estimated 
that when the rookeries were at their prime the seals consumed six 
million tons of fish per year. 

Of late years the Japanese sealing fleet which was not bound by 
the convention between England and America has largely increased. 
They have refused to observe any close season and in some instances 
they have even attempted to plunder the rookeries on St. Paul Island. 
Every year their boldness increases. In 1907 they secured more than 
thirteen thousand skins in Alaskan waters. Properly conserved the 
seal islands would afford a legitimate traffic of more than one million 
dollars a year for centuries to come. 

The two principal islands of the Pribilof group are thirty miles apart. 
St. Paul has an area of about twenty-five hundred acres or thirty-five 
square miles; its highest elevation, Bogoslov, an extinct volcano, is 
six hundred feet and its population of transplanted Aleuts, most of 
them formerly quite prosperous, is reckoned as not far from three 
hundred. It has forty-two miles of shore line, almost half of which 
was formerly occupied by seals. 

St. George is twenty-seven square miles in area and the top of its 
mountain is nine hundred and thirty feet above the sea. It has a 
smaller population, both of seals and drivers. The only trees are creep- 
ing willows ; there are a few bushes. The natives with care raise let- 
tuce, radishes, and turnips, but the multitude of flowers makes them 
beautiful in summer. The summer climate is rainy and foggy — far 
more disagi*eeable than that of Sitka, which is on the same parallel of 
latitude. Owing to the difference of height, five times as much rain 
falls on St. George as on St. Paul, though they are such near neighbors. 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 163 

The winter climate is rather cold, the thermometer sometimes regis- 
tering as much as fifteen degrees below zero. 

The islands are the haunts of innumerable birds. Mr. Henry W. 
Elliott describes not less than forty different species, many of them, 
to be sure, like the robin, temporary visitants, stragglers brought from 
the mainland evidently against their will. He says of the great bird 
rookeries on the bluffs of St. George : — " After the dead silence of 
a long ice-bound winter, the arrival of large flocks of those sparrows 
of the north, the ' choochkies ' is most cheerful and interesting. Those 
plmnp little auks are bright, fearless, vivacious birds with bodies round 
and fat. They come usually in chattering flocks on or immediately 
after the first of May and are caught by the people with hand scoops 
or dip nets to any number that may be required for the day's con- 
sumption; their tiny rotund forms making pies of rare savory virtue, 
and being also baked and roasted and stewed in every conceivable 
shape by the Russian cooks; indeed they are equal to the reed-birds 
of the South. 

" These welcome visitors are succeeded along about the twentieth 
of July by large flocks of fat, red-legged turnstones, which come in 
suddenly from the west or north where they have been breeding and 
stop on the islands for a month or six weeks, as the case may be, to 
feed luxuriantly on the flesh flies and their eggs. Those handsome 
birds go in among the seals familiarly chasing the flies, gnats, etc. 
They are followed, as they leave, in September, by several species of 
jacksnipe and a plover; these, however, soon depart as early as the 
end of October and the beginning of November — and then winter 
fairly closes in upon the islands : the loud roaring, incessant seal din, 
together with the screams and darkening flight of innumerable water- 
fowl, is replaced in turn again by absolute silence, mai-king out, as 
it were, in lines of sharp and vivid contrast, summer's life and win- 
ter's death." 

Wonderful as the bird life is on the large inhabited islands, it can- 
not compare with the so-called Walrus Island, which lies sixty miles. 



1G4 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

from tlie Northeast Point of St. Paul's — a mere lava ledge often 
awash with surf and occasionally haunted by male walrus. Mr. Elliott 
calls this little islet the most interesting single spot known to the nat- 
uralist to study the habits of bird life. " Here without exertion or 
risk," he says, " he can obsen'e and walk among tens upon tens of 
thousands of screaming waterfowl, and as he sits down upon the pol- 
ished lava rock, he becomes literally ignored and environed by these 
feathered friends as they reassume their varied positions of incubation 
which he disturbed them from by his arrival. Generation after gen- 
eration of their kind have resorted to this rock unmolested, and to-day, 
when you get among them, all doubt and distrust seem to have been 
eliminated from their natures. 

" The island itself is rather unusual in those formations which we 
find peculiar to Alaskan waters. It is almost flat, with slight irregular 
undulations on top, spreading over an area of five acres perhaps. It 
rises abruptly, though low, from the sea, and it has no safe beach upon 
■which a person can land from a boat; not a stick of timber or twig 
of shrubbery ever grew upon it, though the scant presence of low crawl- 
ing grasses, in the central portion, prevents the statement that all 
vegetation is absent. Were it not for the frequent rains and dissolving 
fog, characteristic of surmner weather here, the guano accumulation 
would be something wonderful to contemplate — Peru would have a 
rival. As it is, however, the birds when they return, year after year, 
find their nesting-floor swept as clean as if they had never sojourned 
there before. 

" The scene of confusion and iiproar that presented itself to my 
astonished senses when I aproached this place in search of eggs, one 
threatening July moraing, may be better imagined than described, for 
as the clmnsy bidarka came under the lee of the low cliffs, swarm upon 
swarm of murres or ' arries ' dropped in fright from their nesting 
shelves, and before they had control of their flight they struck to the 
right and the left of me, like so many cannon balls. I was forced, in 
self-protection, instantly to crouch for a few moments under the gun- 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 165 

wale of the boat until the stmggling startled flock passed, like an 
irresistible, surging wave, over my head. Words cannot depict the 
amazement and curiosity with which I gazed around, after climbing 
up to the roclvy plateau and standing among myriads of breeding birds, 
that fairly covered the entire surface of the island with their shrink- 
ing forms, while others whirled in rapid flight over my head, as wheels 
within wheels, so thickly inter-running that the blue and gray of the 
sky was hidden from my view. Add to this impression the stunning 
whirr of hundreds of thousands of strong beating wings, and the muf- 
fled croakings of the ' arries,' coupled with an indescribable, disagi'ee- 
able smell which arose from the broken eggs and other decaying sub- 
stances, and a faint idea may be evoked of the strange reality spread 
before me." 

Mr. Elliott and other unscientific observers of the fur-seal attribute 
to them almost human intelligence. He declares that the head, though 
small in proportion to the weight of the body, which is often in excess 
of five hundred pounds, is mostly occupied by brain. " The light 
frame-work of the skull sujiports an expressive pair of large 
bluish-hazel eyes, alternately burning with revengeful passionate 
light, then suddenly changing to the tones of tenderness and good 
nature. 

" Look at it," he says, " as it comes leisurely swirmning on toward 
the land; see how high above the water it carries its head, and how 
deliberately it surveys the beach, after having stepped upon it (for 
it may be truly said to step with its fore flippers, as they regularly 
alternate when it moves up), carrying the head well above them, erect 
and graceful, at least three feet above the ground." 

Mr. Elliott claims that the expression of the cow-seal's eye is " really 
attractive, gentle and intelligent. The large, lustrous, blue-black eyes 
are humid and soft with the tenderest expression, while the small, well- 
formed head is poised as gracefully on her neck as can be well imag- 
ined. She is the very picture of benignity and satisfaction when she 
is poised, perched up on some convenient rock, and has an opportunity 



166 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

to quietly fan herself, the eyes half closed and the head thrown back 
on her gently swelling shoulders. 

" Indeed one would think that the seal was a society lady just in 
the swim! " 

Mr. Elliott is a water color artist and jiaints pictures with a poetic 
touch. 

In another place he says: " The cows during the whole season do 
great credit to their amiable expression by their manner and behavior 
on the rookery. They never fight or quarrel one with the other and 
never or seldom utter a cry of pain or rage when they are roughly 
handled by the bulls. ' ' 

President Jordan cruelly effaces the pretty picture, saying : ' ' While 
the cows do not indulge in pitched battles, they are snappish creatures, 
uncivil to each other, cruel to pups not their own, and capable of giving 
their lords much well-deserved nagging." 

The wonderful intelligence credited to the seal does not receive the 
expert's sanction. He says: — " The life-processes of the fur seal 
are perfect as clock-work, but its grade of intelligence is low. Its range 
of action is very slight. It is a wonderful automaton and the stress 
of its migrations will always keep it so." 

Keeping the scientific check on our imagination, it is still interesting 
to study the seal from the imaginative point of view. 

Early in May come the vanguard of the males. They seem " shy 
and sensitive," not as yet ready to come out on the land. When the 
sikatch or master bull climbs up on a rock he regards it as his castle 
and is prepared to defend it with all his might. Mr. Elliott tells of 
one which met and successfully fought off not less than forty or fifty 
desperate attempts to drive him away. 

" When the fighting season was over," he says, " I saw him still 
there, covered with scars and frightfully gashed — raw, festering and 
bloody — one eye gouged out, but lording it bravely over his harem 
of fifteen or twentj' females, who were all huddled together on the same 
spot of his first location and aroimd him." 




VMLD 1;AIMI>S li.N A .Mill N IAIN SIkKAM. 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 169 

The fighting is done with the teeth. The males seize each other 
and clench their jaws in vise-like grip. Mr. Elliott says : — " They 
usually approach each other with comically averted heads, just as if 
they were ashamed of the rumpus which they are determined to pre- 
cipitate. When they get near enough to reach one another they enter 
ui3on the repetition of many feints or passes before either one or the 
other takes the initiative by gripping. The heads are darted out and 
back as quick as a flash; their hoarse roaring and shrill piping whistle 
never ceases, while their fat bodies writhe and swell with exertion and 
rage; furious lights gleam in their eyes; their hair flies in the air 
and their blood streams down ; all combined makes a picture so fierce 
and so strange that from its unexpected position and its novelty it is 
perhaps one of the most extraordinarily brutal contests one can witness. 

" In these battles of the seals the parties are always distinct — the 
one is offensive, the other defensive. If the latter proves the weaker, 
he withdraws from the position occupied, and is never followed by 
his conqueror, who complacently throws up one of his hind-flippers, 
fans himself as it were, to cool his fevered wrath and blood from the 
heat of the conflict and sinks into comparative quiet, only uttering a 
peculiar chuckle of satisfaction or contempt, with a sharp eye open 
for the next covetous bull or ' sea-catch.' " 

The young bulls, called kholostydki — that is to say bachelors — are 
always ready to get into the ranks of the sikatchi or masters. They 
hang around the rear of the rookeries and seize the chance to steal a 
cow from the " harem." Often the old bulls combine against such a 
seducer and the battle grows so fierce that death sometimes ensues. 
The fighting become fast and furious when the coming and going of 
the cows give better chances for such action. When a bull has chosen 
a station he refuses to leave it and the result is that at the end of the 
summer, no matter how fat and well-conditioned he may be he is greatly 
reduced in flesh. 

The cows bring forth their young almost as soon as they " haul 
up " on the shore. They nurse them for a few days, very much as 



170 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

any other mammals, not allowing tbem to move away. After a few 
days the cows put out to sea for feeding purposes, some wandering 
away a hundred or one hundred and fifty miles. "When they return 
they are always able to detect their own young from amidst the hun- 
dreds of thousands of similar young playing together. The seal at 
birth is about two feet long and weighs ten or a dozen pounds. Their 
gregarious instinct, which causes the cows to " haul up " in enormous 
swanns, also brings the pups into regular little gangs : these are tech- 
nically called pods. So with the bachelor seals which play together in 
the surf and often seem to amuse themselves by teasing the pups. 

The noise made by a seal rookery has been compared to the roar 
of Niagara; it can be heard above the pounding of the surf. The 
cows have only one note, like the cry of a calf or old sheep, though 
if they are suddenly disturbed they spit or snort. But the fighting 
males utter a sound like a locomotive or roar hoarsely or gurgle or 
make a chuckling whistle. Mr. Elliott says: — " The sound which 
arises from these great breeding grounds of the fur seal, where thou- 
sands upon ten thousands of angiy vigilant bulls are roaring, chuck- 
ling and piping, and multitudes of seal mothers are calling in hollow, 
bleating tones to their young, that in their turn respond incessanth', 
is simply defiance to verbal description. It is at a slight distance 
softened into a deep booming, as of a cataract, and I have heard it, 
with a light fair wind to the leeward, as far as six miles out from land 
on the sea ; and even in the thunder of the surf and the roar of heavy 
gales it will rise up and over to your ear for quite a considerable dis- 
tance away." 

Mr. Elliott declares that the bachelor seals are the most restless 
animals in the whole brute creation. They play with each other like 
frisky puppies. " When weary of this gambolling," he says, " a gen- 
eral disposition to sleep is suddenly manifested, and they stretch them- 
selves out and curl up in all the positions and all the postures that 
their flexible spines and ball-and-socket joints will permit. They seem 
to revel in the unwonted vegetation and to be delighted with their 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 171 

own effoi'ts in rolling down and crushing the tall stalks of the grasses 
and the umbelliferous plants; one will lie upon its back, hold up its 
hind flippers and lazily wave them about, while it scratches or rather 
rubs its ribs with the fore hands alternately, the eyes being tightly 
closed during the whole performance; the sensation is evidently so 
luxurious that it does not wish to have any side issue draw off its 
blissful self-attention." 

Of course as swimmers they carry off the palm. There is no truth 
that the young pups are frequently drowned. The multitudes of dead 
pups seen floating in the water are either starved to death because 
the mothers had fallen a prey to the fishermen or they perished through 
the ravages of a parasitic worm which breeds in the filth of the harems. 
They take to the water as naturally as any other animal. One of the 
great sports of the young pups is to roost on rocks awash with the 
waves, where the surf will sweep them away and where they try to 
push one another off and get the better places. They dart in the midst 
of booming breakers and gambol on the very crest of billows that would 
smash a whale ship. The bachelors in the sheer exultation of their 
energy often leap completely out of the water like sturgeon. They 
swim very swiftly, keeping two or three feet under water, propelling 
themselves by their fore flippers and using their hind ones as guiding 
oars. They can stay under water a sm'prisingly long time without 
breathing. 

Mr. Elliott says : — " All their movements in water, whether they 
are travelling to some objective point or are in sport, are quick and 
joyous; and nothing is more suggestive of intense satisfaction and 
pure physical comfort than is that spectacle which we can see every 
August a short distance out at sea from any rookery, where thousands 
of old males and females are idly rolling over on the billows side by 
side, rubbing and scratching with their fore and hind flippers, which 
are here and there stuck up out of the water by their owners, like the 
lateen sails of the Mediterranean feluccas, or, when the hind flippers 
are presented, like a cat-o'-nine tail. They sleep in the water a great 



172 OUR NORTHERN' DOMAIN. 

deal, too, more than is generally supi^osed, showing that they do not 
come on land to rest." 

One of the odd sights of a voyage in the Bering waters is that of 
a female seal asleep. They turn on their backs, fold their flipisers over 
their breasts and by curving their hind flippers up keep themselves 
upright like a boat. Their nostrils are so formed that when they have 
breathed the walls tightly close and keep out the water. 

John Burroughs speaking of the seal says: — "Lying there in 
masses or wriggling about upon the rocks all their lines soft and flow- 
ing, their motions hampered, the fur-seals suggested huge larvae, or 
something between the grub and the water insect. They appeared to 
be yet in a kind of sack or envelope. The males wriggle about like 
a man in a bag; but once in the water they are a part of the water, 
as fleet and nimble as a fish, or as a bird in the air." 

The gregarious instincts of the seal make the labor of driving them 
comparatively slight. A few men can keep the herd in motion. When 
the time arrives the whole population of the village turns out to take 
part. Two men stationing themselves at opposite sides of the herd will 
segregate twenty or thirty of the bachelor seals, and, getting behind 
them and rattling bones and shouting, drive them away from the haul- 
ing ground. The young animals when driven are as docile and amiable 
as a flock of sheep. When they reach the killing groimd, which is per- 
haps two or three miles distant, they are allowed to rest themselves 
and cool off. Then half a dozen or more experienced men armed with 
ash or hickory sticks bound with sheet iron, called mamlika, and made 
in New London, Connecticut, club the seals, one blow being generally 
suflicient to stun the animal. The clubbed seal is then dragged into a 
line and stabbed to the heart. The skinners come along and strip off 
the hide, spreading it evenly on the grass, flesh side down. The women 
take the carcass and remove such portions of the blubber of fat as they 
want. The meat they dry and pack into the dried stomach of the sea- 
lion for future consumption. 

In the old days it was permitted by law to take a hundred thousand 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 173 

seals from the Pribilof ; the Tvork of slaughtering and skinning that 
number was accomplished in forty days. Elliott says : — 

" The labor of skinning is excessively severe, and is trying even to 
an expert, demanding long practice ere the muscles of the back and 
thighs are so developed as to permit a man to bend down and finish 
well a fair day's work. The knives used by the natives for skinning 
are ordinary kitchen or case-handled butcher knives. They are sharp- 
ened to cutting edges as keen as razors, but something about the skin 
of the seal, perhaps fine comminuted sand along the abdomen, so dulls 
these knives as the natives work that they are constantly obliged to 
whet them. 

" The body of the seal, preparatory to skinning, is rolled over and 
balanced squarely on its back. Then the native makes a single swift 
cut through the skin down along the neck, chest, and belly, from the 
lower jaw to the root of the tail, using for this purpose his long stab- 
bing knife. The fore and hind flippers are then successively lifted as 
the man straddles the seal and stoops down to this work over it, and 
a sweeping circular incision is made on the skin just at the point where 
the body fur ends. Then, seizing a flap of the hide on either one side 
or the other of the abdomen, the man proceeds, with his smaller, shorter 
butcher knife, rapidly to cut the skin clean and free from the body and. 
blubber, which he rolls over and out from the hide by hauling up on 
it as he advances with his work, standing all this time stooped over 
the carcass, so that his hands are but slightly above it or the ground. 
This operation of skinning a fair-sized ' holluschak ' [kholostyak] 
takes the best men only one minute and a half; but the average time 
made by the gang on the ground is about four minutes to the seal." 

Although the odor of the seal blubber is peculiarly offensive to sen- 
sitive nostrils, the meat of the seal is quite appetizing if properly pre- 
pared. 

In the old days the skins were air dried, a method which was not 
always effective. It is said that in 1803 seven hundred and fifty thou- 
sand of such skins, accumulated at Sitka, rotted and had to be thrown 



174 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

away. They are now taken immediately to the salt-house where they 
are piled up in " kenches " or bins with a profusion of salt spread on 
the flesh side. When they are sufficiently pickled they are tied up in 
twos, the hair side out, and are ready for shipment. Most of them 
are sent to London in hogsheads containing from twenty to forty. 
There by a secret process they are fashioned into the beautiful fur 
which my lady wears, in the form of a thousand dollar coat, generally 
to the detriment of her health. 

The seal-killing takes place in June and July. By the end of October 
the rookeries begin to look deserted, though some old seals remain 
in the vicinity very late or even all winter. The females strike di- 
rectly south and appear on the coast of Southern California so speedily 
that it is believed they make no stop on the way. Their return on the 
other hand is slow as they are then heavy with young. President Jor- 
dan says : — 

" The herd as a whole takes a direct course through the Pacific Ocean 
obliquely to the coast of California. It is probable that the adult males 
go no farther south than the latitude of Cape Flattery; but the adult 
females are taken off the coast of Southern California within two weeks 
after their departure from the islands, and hence their course must be 
direct and rapid. On their return they move slowly back to the Ameri- 
can coast, reaching the passes about the first of June, whither they have 
already been preceded by the adult males and older bachelors. ' ' 

Another of the interesting pinniped inhabitants of the Pribilof 
Islands is the sea-lion. It has an imposing presence and a sonorous 
voice, which, when put forth at full capacity of its lungs will drown 
the booming of the surf. It is much larger than the fur-seal, attaining 
a length of ten or twelve feet and huge girth around the shoulders. 
It is often seen rearing its mighty hulk on some rock just above the 
sea, and with its tawny chest and grizzly mane, its gleaming ugly teeth 
and sinister mouth guarded by gristly lips, it is a fierce and awe-in- 
spiring creature. Mr. Elliott witnessed a battle between two old males. 
He says : — 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 175 

"No animals that I have ever seen in combat presented a more 
savage or a more cruelly fascinating sight than did a brace of old sea- 
lion bulls which met under my eyes near the Garden Cove at St. George. 
Here was a sea-lion rookery, the outskirts of which I had trodden upon 
for the first time. These old males, surrounded by their meek polyga- 
mous families, were impelled toward each other by those latent fires 
of hate and jealousy which seemed to burst forth and fairly consume 
the angry rivals. Opening with a long, round vocal prelude, they grad- 
ually came together, as the fur-seals do, with averted heads, as if the 
sight of each other was sickening — but fight they must. One would 
play against the other for an unguarded moment in which to assume 
the initiative, until it had struck its fangs into the thick skin of its 
opponent's jowl; then, clenching its jaws, was not shaken off until the 
struggles of its tortured victim literally tore them out, leaving an ugly 
gaping wound — for the sharp eye-teeth cut a deeper gutter in the skin 
and flesh than would have held my hand. Fired into an almost super- 
natural rage, the injured lion retaliated quick as a flash, in kind; the 
hair flew from both of them into the air, the blood streamed down in 
frothy torrents, while high above the boom of the breaking waves and 
shrill, deafening screams of waterfowl overhead rose the ferocious, 
hoarse and desperate roar of the combatants." 

Courageous as they are when fighting among themselves, Steller 
says the males take flight on the first appearance of man, and if sur- 
prised in their sleep, are panic struck, sighing deeply, and in their 
attempt to escape get quite confused, tumble down and tremble so much 
that they are scarcely able to move their limbs. The full grown adult 
weighs more than half a ton ; as is the case with the seals, the females 
are much smaller, generally not half the size. 

The harems of the sea-lion are organized very much like their smaller 
cousins. Each bull has from fifteen to twenty cows and aggregating 
in a single rookery from five to ten thousand. They are the most rest- 
less of ci'eatures, " ever twisting and turning, coiling and uncoiling 
themselves over the rocks, now stretched out prone in slumber, the 



176 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

next minute up and moving; the roar of one is instantly caught up 
by another, so that the aggregate sound as it rises and falls from this 
rookery can only be compared to the hoarse sound of a tempest as it 
howls through the rigging of a ship " or " roaring in an incessant con- 
cert, making an orchestra to which those deep, sonorous tones in the 
great Mormon tabernacle at Salt Lake City constitute the fittest and 
most adequate resemblance." 

The fui' of the sea-lion is valueless commercially, but the natives 
make great use of the hide and indeed of the whole animal. They 
take advantage of a night when the moon is partially obscured and 
crawl along between the sentinels and the sea. Then at a given signal 
they all leap to their feet making the greatest possible din with shouts 
and yells and the discharge of pistols. The sea-lions frightened out 
of their sleep, start off in the direction in which they happen to be 
lying. A few jump over the cliff, others charge for the higher land 
where, being guided by the prodding natives, they are corraled in a 
circular cage made of stakes adorned with fluttering flags and stuck 
into the ground ten or twenty feet apart and connected by strips of 
cotton cloth and a thong of hide. This almost imaginary prison serves 
to keep them; they make no attempt to escape. Wh.en a herd or pod 
of two or three hundred have been thus captured they are driven to 
their destination, which may be ten or eleven miles away, the process 
taking from five days to three weeks, the natives allowing them to rest 
from time to time, and then stimulating them again to action by clap- 
ping boards and bones, rapping sticks on the rocks, firing fuses and 
waving flags or cotton umbrellas. The killing of the old bulls is done 
with a rifle-shot, fired between the eye and the ear. The cows are 
speared. 

When the skins have been unhaired by sweating they are sewed to- 
gether and stretched over a light frame-work, and this constitutes the 
native kyak or bidarka. The intestine pulled out to its full length 
of sixty feet or more is made into the water-tight kamlaila, the most 
useful garment they possess. The throats are made into boot-tops, 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 177 

the flippers into soles. The meat of the young sea-lion tastes like veal. 
The tough whiskers are greatly prized by the Chinese, who use them 
as pickers for their opium pipes. 

When the Eussians first took jjossession of the Pribilof Islands they 
were the resort of multitudes of walrus; now their haunt is on the 
small island already described. Gesner, in 1558, declared that the fish 
called Rosmarii or Morsii had heads fashioned like an ox and " a hairy 
skin, the hair growing as thick as straw or corn-reeds, that lie loose 
very largely." He says: — " They will raise themselves with their 
teeth, as by ladders, to the very tops of rocks that they may feed upon 
the dewie grasse, or fresh water, and roll themselves in it, and go then 
to the sea again, unless in the meantime they fall very fast asleep, and 
rest upon the rocks, for then the fishermen make all the haste they 
can, and begin at the tail, and part the skin from the fat; and into 
this that is parted they put most strong cords, and fasten them on the 
rugged rocks or trees that are near, and then they throw stones at his 
head, out of a sling, to raise him, and they compel him to descend 
spoiled of the greatest part of his skin which is fastened to the ropes ; 
he being thereby debilitated, fearful and half dead, is made a rich 
prey, especially for his teeth which are very precious among the Scyth- 
ians, the Muscovites, Eussians and Tartars (as ivoiy amongst the 
Indians) by reason of their harness, whitenesse and ponderousnesse." 

James Cartier in 1534 mentioned having met " very greate beastes 
as greate as oxen, which have two great teeth in their mouths like unto 
elephants and live also in the sea." Captain Cook gave a vivid de- 
scription of the Pacific walrus as he saw the creature in its pristine 
abundance : — 

* ' They lie in herds of many hundreds upon the ice, huddling one over 
the other like swine, and roar or bay very loud, so that in the night 
or in foggy weather they gave us notice of the vicinity of the ice before 
we could see it. We never found the whole herd asleep, some being 
always on the watch. These, on the approach of the boat, would wake 
those next to them, and the alarm being thus gradually communicated, 



178 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

the whole hei'd would be awake presently. But they were seldom in 
a hurry to get away till after they had ouce been fired at, when they 
would tumble one over the other into the sea in the utmost confusion, 
and if we did not at the first discharge kill those we fired at we gen- 
erally lost them, though mortally wounded. They did not appear to 
be that dangerous animal some authors have described, not even when 
attacked. They are rather more so in ajjpearance than in reality. 

" Vast number of them would follow, and some come close up to the 
boats, but the flash of a musket in the pan, or even the bare pointing 
of one at them, would send them down in an instant." 

They seem to be more awkward and elmnsy, both on laud and in 
the water, as well as more slothful than the seals and sea-lions. The 
young are hairy, but the old ones have a skin covered with warts or 
pimples, wrinkled and flabby and utterly disgusting. On the land it 
is almost helpless because of its bulk — some of them are twelve feet 
long and weigh almost a ton — conti'asted with its ineffectual limbs. 
It swims under water; when it comes to the surface it blows like a 
whale. It is not true that it uses its tusks as landing hooks ! Like the 
seal and sea-lion its vision is feeble but its sense of hearing acute. The 
hide is very thick, in some places three inches. It feeds on crustaceans 
in contradistinction to the seal, in whose stomach no shell fish is said 
ever to have been found, and the long white tusks are supposed to be 
used for digging clams in the estuaries of the North. The walrus is 
said by the natives to be monogamous ; the mother is so strongly at- 
tached to her young that she will defend it with her life — in strong 
contrast to the carelessness of the seal which never lavishes any affec- 
tion or very little care on the pup. The Eskimos used to kill an average 
of ten thousand a year up to 1867, and as their habitat is near the shal- 
low shore where fishing fleets can not easily reach them there is no 
great likelihood of the natives ever being de^jrived of this valuable 
source of livelihood. " The walrus to the Eskimo," says Elliott, " an- 
swers just as the cocoa palm does to the South Sea islander ; it feeds 
him, it clothes him, it heats and illuminates his ' igloo,' and it arms 



SEALS, SEA -LIONS AND WALRUS. 179 

him for the chase, while he builds his summer shelter and rides upon 
the sea by virtue of its hide." 

Elliott who tasted walrus meat on St. Lawrence Island declares it 
was worse than beaver's tail, or tough brown bear steak, in fact worse 
than any flesh he had ever eaten: — " It has a strong flavor of an 
indefinite acrid nature, which turned my palate and my stomach in- 
stantaneously and simultaneously, while the surprised natives stared 
in bewildered silence at their astonished and disgusted guest. They, 
however, put chunks two inches square, and even larger, of this flesh 
and blubber into their mouths as rapidly as the storage room there 
would joermit — and with what grimy gusto — the corners of their 
large lips dripping with the fatness of their feeding ! How little they 
thought then that in a few short seasons they would die of starvation 
sitting in those same ' igloos ' — their caches empty and nothing but 
endless fields of barren ice where the life-giving sea should be. The 
winter of 1879 - 80 was one of exceptional rigor in the Arctic, although 
in the United States it was unusually mild and open. The ice closed 
in solid around St. Lawrence Island — so firm and unshaken by the 
giant leverage of wind and tide that the walruses were driven far to 
the southward and eastward beyond the reach of the unhappy inhab- 
itants of that island, who, thus unexpectedly deprived of their main- 
stay and support, seem to have miserably starved to death, with the 
exception of one small village on the north shore." In 1907 only nine- 
teen walrus hides were shipped out of Alaska. 

The inhabitants of the Pribilof are Aleutians who were colonized 
there by the Russian fur-company and have ever since maintained a 
monopoly of killing and treating the seals. When they came into the 
hands of the United States the successors of the Russian Company, 
the so-called Alaska Commercial Company, pursued the same policy 
toward the natives, but seem to have treated the natives more gen- 
erously. In 1874 they paid the inhabitants forty cents a skin for taking 
and curing and in addition forty cents apiece for sea-lion skins, ten 
cents for their throats and five dollars a barrel for their intestines. 



ISO OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

Tbey also furnished the natives with comfortable houses, mth school 
instruction and medical attendance. Their earnings were so large as 
to make them the most prosperous of all the Aleutians, though as their 
work all came concentrated in two months and the rest of the year 
was practically spent in idleness, they vegetated, mentally and physi- 
cally, but as they cannot get liquor and are essentially law-abiding 
they are not unhappy. Card-playing, tea-drinking, attendance at the 
Russian church which is still maintained, the playing of musical instru- 
ments, and sleeping, were their chief occupation. Since the diminution 
of the rookeries and the reduction of the annual killing from a hundred 
thousand to only a few thousand they have suffered from actual pov- 
erty and the United States is likely to be called upon to support them. 
Small and insignificant as are the Pribilof Islands in comparison 
with the rest of Alaska they certainly by reason of their inhabitants, 
marine and feathered, as well as human, and the enormous interests 
concentrated there, yield in no respect to any place in that whole vast 
territory. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



SINCE we are travelling by imagination we may have any kind of 
a conveyance and we may instantly transport ourselves back to 
Juneau and take another trij) along the coast. This time we 
shall stop at Sitka, situated on the southwesterly side of Baranof Island, 
and about a hundred miles in a straight line from Juneau. It is reached 
by the inland passage and is enehantingly situated against a back- 
ground of beautiful wooded mountains with its harbor gleaming blue 
and purple amid a multitude of lovely islands. As the tourist ap- 
proaches the town by either of the three possible passages, threading 
these beautiful passages around rugged points, the eye catches sight 
of the Busso-Greek cathedral church of St. Michael, sacred to the mem- 
ory of the saintly Veniaminof. It stands in full sight from the sea 
and seems to give promise of a foreign city — wuh its green roof, its 
big clock, its peculiar balloon-shaped spire surmounted by the Greek 
cross, and its octagonal belfry with the six bells sent from Moscow 
hanging each in its arch. 

On landing one is faced by the old Russian storehouse, an enormous 
log structure which stands between the wharf and the town. Along 
the interminable passage and at both ends squat the gray-blanketed 
Indian women offering all sorts of trinkets and curios. Some are 
beautiful and artistic, others are simply barbarous and crude. There 
are baskets brought from far Attn, a thousand miles to the westward 
where West has become East, great horn spoons carved by the Haidas 
from the antlers of mountain sheep or goats ; gaudy bead moccasins, 
gayly painted cedar or pine canoes and paddles, miniature totem-poles, 
carved out of wood or jade, wooden lamps inlaid with shells and made 

181 



182 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

to look like prehistoric beasts, all sorts of silver adornments, especially 
the Alaska totem-spoon designed by Lieutenant Schwatka and made by 
native jewellers, Chilkat blankets, carved and polished gambling imple- 
ments and ancestral weapons. They are shrewd dealers and the 
stranger is quite likely to be well taken in. 

It is only a few steps from the wharf to the Bussian church, and 
having paid the admission fee of fifty cents one is allowed to see its 
treasures : — the ikonostas adorned with its sacred pictures or images 
in costly frames of chased silver and gold. Above the magnificent cen- 
tral gate made of elaborate bronze is a beautifully painted represen- 
tation of the Ascension which was formerly in the Lutheran church 
built in 18-40, but now torn down. The ikon of the patron saint was 
rescued from a Kussian vessel wrecked just at the entrance of Sitka 
harbor. The vestments used by the clergy, many of them woven bro- 
cades of gold and silver, the gifts of old Baranof, are well worth in- 
specting. The ikon exhibited in the chapel dedicated to " our Lady 
of Kazan " is studded with jewels. An offer of fifteen thousand dol- 
lars has been refused for it. There are also fine baptismal bowls and 
ornate crowns used for weddings, censers of beautifully modelled sil- 
ver, missals with jewelled and enamelled covers. The Bible had silver 
covers weighing twenty-seven pounds. It was stolen by discharged 
United States soldiers together with other valuables, a part of which 
were afterwards recovered badly mutilated. The chapel of St. Mary 
is used for winter services : it is rendered notable by a wonderful ikon 
representing the Madonna and Child. 

At the building occupied by the Russian Orthodox Mission may be 
seen interesting relics, Bishop Veniaminof's clock, his writing-desk, 
which he made with his own hands, and a beautiful ikon presented by 
the Princess Potemkin. Other buildings belonging to the Church are 
on the north side of the cathedral. On the south side is a ponderous 
log building occupied now as a general storehouse but formerly the 
head-offices of the Eussian- American Fur Company. How many mil- 
lions' worth of precious furs have been stored there in the palmy days 



SITKA. 183 

of tliat industry! A building at the corner of quadrangle was used 
successively as the club of the Eussian officers and then for a similar 
purpose by the United States garrison. 

There is a museum of Alaskan curiosities founded by Mr. Sheldon 
Jackson. The fees for admission help support it. 

Before the days of the California gold-fever, the Sitka ship-yards and 
foundries were busy places, being the only industries of that sort on 
the Pacific coast. Many of the bells of the California missions were 
cast there. Here was built the famous pug-nosed side-wheeler, the 
Politkovsky, of solid cedar planking four inches thick hewed from 
irmnense logs and fastened with copper spikes beaten from virgin placer 
metal. She carried fourteen iron and two brass cannon and copper 
boilers three-fourths of an inch thick. The final ceremonies of the 
transfer of Alaska were consummated on board of the PolitTcovsky 
amid the impressive chanting and intoning of the Eussian clergy 
dressed in their most gorgeous robes. Her brass cannon fired the last 
salute and the enormous dark bronze whistle, for years the largest on 
the Pacific coast, which is still preserved as a sacred relic, blew a long 
drawn blast. It was on exhibition at the Seattle exposition. This his- 
toric ship, passing through various hands and vicissitudes, but always 
in Alaskan waters, was finally wrecked in 1908 while doing service as 
a lighter. ' 

The rocky promontory where Baranof had his clash with the Thlin- 
kits is now occupied by the home of the director of the government agri- 
cultural department. It is reached by a long flight of wooden steps. 
On the hill is the Eussian cemetery overlooking Swan Lake. Here 
are buried many pioneers. Wliat life-tragedies here came to the same 
peaceful ending! In one corner rests the remains of Prince Matsu- 
kof 's English wife, whose hospitalities were enjoyed by many Amer- 
ican and English visitors. 

By an executive proclamation in 1890 a strip of land five hundred 
feet wide on the right bank and two hundred and fifty feet wide on 
the left bank of the Indian Eiver, called by the Eussians the Kolosh- 



184 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

chinkaya Eetclia, has been forever reserved as a park. It extends from 
the picturesque falls to the mouth of the river. This and the public 
garden back of the cathedral and parade-ground sloping to the water 
give Sitka abundant outing-places. The park is universally admired. 
It abounds in splendid cedars, and other great Alaskan trees; near 
the falls formerly stood a cedar which was ten feet in diameter. There 
are thickets of salmon-berry and other delicious fruit bushes ; the dev- 
il's club here attains a height of twenty feet ; in the summer multitudes 
of beautiful flowers fill the air with fragrance. Enchanting paths, 
admirably kept, lead down to the river, and when one reaches the beach 
one suddenly comes upon a small grove of totems erected amid the green 
spruce trees. Here are the graves of Lisyansky's men who were mur- 
dered by the Indians in 1804. Baranof's favorite seat on the great 
stone near the beach is still pointed out. It is called the Blarney stone 
and people who kiss it are supposed to be gi'anted persuasive eloquence. 
There is a Russian inscription eai'%'ed upon it and many names of visit- 
ing ships have been there recorded. If stones had the eloquence 
ascribed to them by Shakespeare what fascinating tales that great 
boulder could relate of days long past ! 

Although Sitka has lost its importance since the seat of government 
was transferred to Juneau, it is still the most interesting town in Alaska 
and is fairly prosperous, though curiously enough its name is not given 
in the Governor's report for 1908 among the incorporated towns, and 
not a vessel of noticeable tonnage either entered or cleared in its har- 
bor during the two years previous. In 1908 there were sixty pupils 
in the Sitkan schools. One of the most useful of these institutions is 
the Industrial Training School, which was founded by the Missionary- 
Governor, John G. Brady, a third of a century ago. Both boys and 
girls of native stock attend and are educated to become self-supporting; 
the boys learn boat-building, carpentry, rope-making, agriculture and 
other useful trades. The girls are taught cooking, sewing, laundiy- 
work and the like. The language spoken is English. 

Though the climate of Sitka is mild and very equable, there is a great 



SITKA. 187 

rainfall and the paucity of sunny days in summer tends to check the 
ripening of vegetables. Xevertheless. cabbage and cauliflower, pota- 
toes and the common '' garden truck " generally do well. Mr. Brady 
in 1S7S declared that probably there was not another spot on the globe 
where the same number of people did so little manual labor and were 
so well-fed as at Sitka. He pointed out that the Sitkan natives had 
good minds and were susceptible of a high state of culture. The pure 
Thliukits formerly looked down upon the Sitkan Indians, who were of 
mixed stock. The Indian village has been of late years greatly trans- 
formed and as long ago as 1892 every oue of the great communal lodges 
had been destroyed. The population is now comparatively small. The 
name Sitka is said to mean monutaiu-village and certainly that is ap- 
propriate. Mr. George Broke declares the view from the Sitka cita- 
del somewhat resembles that of the Bay of Naples, but with the addi- 
tional charm of snow mountains and smaU glaciers. 

An interesting excursion from Sitka is to foUow the old trail to the 
summit of Verstovoi, which from its height of three thousand two hun- 
dred and sixteen feet affords a magnificent view of the islands toward 
the Pacific, of the Baranof Mountains, Silver Bay, Sitka and even 
Mt. Fairweather, one hundred miles away. Above eight hundred feet 
the view is unobstructed by underbrush. The name Arrow Head, which 
is sometimes applied to the moimtain. arises from a peculiar triangle 
of rock which lies on one side. 

From that height one can get an idea of the variety of excursions 
possible from Sitka among the harbor islands. Opposite the Indian 
village is Japonsky, which is about a mile long and half a mile wide 
and originally the site of a large native ^■illage. Here in 1S05 a Jai> 
anese junk was wrecked and hence the name. It is now used for coal- 
sheds and a powder magazine. Harbor Island is south of Japonsky 
and contains a number of Indian caches. On one side of the ship chan- 
nel is Kutkan, where lived an Indian chief who related to Bishop Veni- 
aminof many of the myths and legends which he chronicled. 

Signal Island was utilized in Baranof 's time for establishing the 



188 OtR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

lighted bonfires announcing the arrival of a ship as a guidance for the 
pilot. The ship arri\'ing would fire a gun and then would flash out 
the signals, answered by a bonfire on the citadel roof. 

On the east side of Baranof Island are situated the "White Sulphur 
Hot Springs, of which there are four, and it is an all day's canoe trip 
to go and return. The canoe threads its way through fascinating in- 
tricate passages. The water is impregnated with sulphur, chloride 
of iron and magnesia — not to say with heat ! An egg may be boUed 
in the largest of the springs, which has a temperature of one hundred 
and fifty-five degrees. A second spring has a temperature of one hun- 
dred and twenty-two. The Indians knew of the virtues of these foun- 
tains and used to go there and soak for hours at a time La the water; 
the bay where they are situated was neutral ground. Lisyansky dis- 
covered them in 1805. Sir George Simpson visited them in 1842. In 
1852 the natives, resenting the possession of the springs by any one, 
their own unwritten law forbidding settlements or claims, burnt all 
the buildings and drove the inmates into the woods. The invalids thus 
routed out in the middle of winter managed to cross the moimtains 
to Sitka in safety. After the United States Government took posses- 
sion there was a stockaded post with hospital, chapel, residences, and 
gardens. The vegetation there is of exceptional luxuriance. After 
the withdrawal of the troops the natives again burnt the settlement. 
The baths are now come into possession of private persons and are 
accordingly exploited instead of being reserved for public use as should 
have been the case. 

The mountains behind the bay are full of wild game — black-tailed 
bears and deer, and the streams abound in trout. The hunter is in 
turn hunted by the ever-ferocious mosquito, whose assaults justify the 
Thlinkit legend that it was originally a giant spider, which, when caught 
by an evil spirit and flung into the fire, escaped, though shrivelled in 
size, bearing in its mouth a coal to torment mankind with. 

From the Hot Springs hillside is obtained a magnificent view of the 
volcanic Mount Edgecumbe. Mount Edgecumbe, called by the natives 



SITKA. 189 

Tlugh or the Sleeper, is situated in Kruzof Island. It ■was first called 
San Jacinto or St. Hyacinth, but Cook renamed it. Crossing waters 
often rough and ioggy one lands on the farther side of Sitka Sound, 
and then has a tramp through swamps and forest land for several 
miles to the base of the mountain. Two Kadiak hunters climbed it 
in 1S04: and reported the crater filled with water. It is said to have 
been in eruption during that year. Since then it has been climbed many 
times, more than once by women. Steam and the smell of sulphur 
show that fii'es are not far below. On the Camel's Hump, of which 
Edgecumbe is only a parasitic cone, is a still larger crater, from the 
mouth of which not so many centui'ies ago poured the lavas which 
formed the island. Edgecumbe was the home of the famed Thunder 
Bird. 

The voyage from Juneau or Sitka northwest to Prince William Sound 
is in some respects the crowning experience of Alaskan travel. From 
Juneau one passes the famous Glacier Bay which was for years the 
cynosure of all eyes. Into it poured nine living glaciers, of which 
the one named after Dr. John Muir and poetically described by him, 
was the greatest and most tj^pical. It was about three miles wide and 
three hundred feet high, sweeping down from mountains rising to a 
height of fifteen thousand feet. The face of the glacier in the sun had 
the color of aquamarine and from its multitudinous crystal pinnacles 
were reflected all the hues of the rainbow. As the glacier moved sea- 
ward at the rate of more than sixty feet a day, from time to time enor- 
mous icebergs fell off into the water with a thundering crash which 
went echoing from one side of the bay to the other. Early in 1890 a 
great earthquake occurred, shattering its crystalline front and so cho- 
king the whole bay with its debris that no ship could approach within 
fifteen miles. In the year 1908 it was found to be once more accessible 
and since then steamships have approached as formerly. AVhen Miss 
Scidmore saw it for the last time she said : — " The whole brow was 
transfigured with the fires of sunset; the blue and silvery pinnacles, 
the white and shining front floatine: dreamlike on a roseate and amber 



190 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

sea, and the range and circle of dull violet mountains lifting their glow- 
ing summits into a sky flecked with crimson and gold. ' ' 

But the glaciers in this bay, enormous and wonderful as they are, 
do not begin to exhaust the possibilities of the phenomena in marvel- 
lous Alaska. There are no less than one hundred and seventy that 
are important enough to be named, and it is estimated that niue- 
tenths of the ice of this continent is contained in the region extending 
north to the Wrangel Eange and west to the Kenai Peninsula, an area 
of fifty thousand square miles. Beginning at the Cross Sound, which 
separates Chitchgof Island from the mainland, begins the stupendous 
Coast Range of mountains from which most of these glaciers descend. 
Above Icy Point La Perouse rises to a height of ten thousand seven 
hundred and forty feet. Then comes Lituya, whose dazzling top looks 
down from a height of eleven thousand eight hundred and thirty-two 
feet on the only bay on that long stretch of coast. Even that has a 
dangerous entrance as the tide sweeps in with a swift bore. Here in 
1786 the French navigator lost two boat-loads of men, twenty-one in 
all, who were overturned in the ic}' waters and drowned. He erected a 
monument to their memory on a small island called He de Cenotaphe. 
Their names were enrolled and buried in a bottle with an account of 
the disaster. La Perouse described the inhabitants of Lituya Bay 
as treacherous and thievish. They were crazy to obtain iron and were 
willing to barter furs and fish for the precious metal. He was scan- 
dalized at the filthy habits of the natives and especially disgusted at 
the ugliness of the women, enhanced by their mutilating themselves 
with labrets. 

When Captain Dixon, whose harbor lies to the south of Icy Cape, 
was there a year later he did not find the women so very terrible. He 
gives a pleasant description of them and tells how he persuaded one 
of them to wash the paint fi'om her face. He says that then " her 
countenance had all the cheerful glow of an English milkmaid's; and 
the healthy red which suffused her cheeks was even beautifully con- 
trasted with the white of her neck; her eyes were black and sparkling; 



SITKA. 191 

her eyebrows of the same color and most beautifully arched ; her fore- 
head so remarkably clear that the translucent veins were seen meander- 
ing even in their minutest branches • — in short she would be consid- 
ered handsome even in England." 

La Perouse himself was upset in the bay by the tidal wave from an 
iceberg falling into the water. All the navigators who have visited 
the bay have remarked on the wonders of the glaciers, of which there 
are at least five active ones. Dr. Dall described the bay as " a sort 
of Yosemite Valley, retaining the glaciers and with its floor submerged 
six or eight hundred feet." The natives have a legend to the effect 
that two men in the shape of bears sit on either side of the entrance 
holding a sail cloth just below the surface and when a canoeman ap- 
pears toss him furiously into the air. About forty miles beyond Litiaya 
Bay is Dry Bay, the shallow delta of the Alsek Eiver, which rises near 
the source of the Chilkat and flows in a precipitous course behind Mt. 
Fairweather, crowded with salmon. It has been explored from mouth 
to source. Lieutenant Emmons made the crossing from bay to bay on 
land. Mt. Fairweather rises as it were perpendicularly from the sea to 
a height of fifteen thousand two hundred and ninety-two feet. 

The nest indentation is Yakutat Bay, two hundred and fifteen miles 
from Sitka. Cook and Vancouver called it Bering Bay; Dixon dubbed 
it Admiralty Bay and La Perouse affixed to it the name of Monti. For- 
tunately the native name has been preserved. There are a number of 
islands on the eastern shore of the bay but the mouth is unobstructed 
and the full force of the Pacific, here hardly deserving of that name, 
is likely to sweep into it, rendering entrance difficult and dangerous, 
especially as it is likely to be more or less blocked by floating ice. At 
Port Mulgrave there is a good harbor with a Moravian Mission sup- 
ported by the Swedish Lutheran Church. Here Baranof endeavored 
to establish a convict colony. Shelikof, at whose instance he landed 
there, gave him some admirable instructions. He said: — " Use taste 
as well as practical judgment in locating the settlement. Look to beauty 
as well as to convenience of material and supplies. On the plan, as 



192 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

well as in reality, leave room for si^acious squares for public assemblies. 
Make the streets not too long, but wide, and let them radiate from the 
squares. If the site is wooded, let trees enough stand to line the streets 
and to fill the gardens, in order to beautify the place and presei-ve 
a healthy atmosphere. Build the houses along the streets, but at some 
distance from one another, in order to increase the extent of the town. 
The roofs should be of equal height, and the architecture as uniform 
as possible. The gardens should be of equal size and provided with 
good fences along the streets." 

A post and fortifications were erected and several ships were built, 
but the farming industry, which it was hoped to establish, was hardly 
suited to that locality. Many of the settlers died and the rest were 
massacred by the Thlinkits in 1805. In the old days, when there were 
a greater number of Indians, they used to come out in canoes, singing, 
and paddle ceremoniously round any visiting ship. They would bring 
their wares to exchange for articles of iron and for white men's ap- 
parel. 

Gold was discovered along the beaches of Yakutat Bay in 1880 and 
the miners for a time were able to extract as much as forty dollars 
a day by the use of rotary hand amalgamators. But a big storm piled 
the beaches with dog-fish which decayed and soaked the sand with oil 
so that the mercury would not act. A tidal wave washed out a large 
part of the black sand and little has been done there since. The chief 
of the Yakutat Indians made the miners pay him tribute. The black 
sand contained platinum as well as gold. Good coal occurs a mile or 
two inland but it has not as yet been exploited owing to the difficulty 
of reaching it. 

At the head of Yakutat Bay, which penetrates the land for sixty 
miles, there is a smaller bay, named by the Italian navigator Malaspina 
Disenchantment Bay. He sup2>osed that tide water ended there. Since 
then it has been explored for sixty miles farther and found almost to 
reach the sea again toward the south. To the north of Disenchantment 
Bay lie the two glaciers, Dalton and Hubbard. The fjord running south 



SITKA. 193 

among lofty mountains is regarded by those who have seen it — and 
they are few — as offering the most magnificent scenery on the coast. 
Lofty mountains rise on both sides and cascades come dashing down 
their precipitous cliffs. 

Mr. Muir writes of the scenery there that it is " gloriously wild and 
sublime, majestic mountains and glaciers, barren moraines, bloom-cov- 
ered islands amid icy, swirling waters, enlivened by screaming gulls, 
hair-seals and roaring bergs. On the other hand, the beauty of the 
southern extension of the bay is tranquil and restful and perfectly 
enchanting. Its shores, especially on the east side, are flowery and 
finely sculptured, and the mountains, of moderate height, are charm- 
ingly combined and reflected in the quiet waters." 

The town of Yakutat has been rendered prosperous by the lumber 
trade. A railway climbs up into the interior for several miles. On 
the wharf are a saw mill and cannery. On the plateau above are stores 
and a few residences. Not far away is the village inhabited by the 
Thlinkits. There is a forest walk to the old Thlinkit village where the 
natives weave their beautiful baskets and carve their curious trinkets 
which they offer to the interested tourist. They still keep up their 
reputation as light-fingered gentry which Puget discovered to his cost 
a hundred years ago. 

On the north side of the bay begins the greatest known glacier of the 
world, the Malaspina. It is not less than sixty miles in length and 
extends back into the country fully twenty miles. Most of the way it is 
separated from the sea by a forested moraine six miles in width. It 
pours over into the waves at Icy Cape. All day long as the steamer 
ploughs to the northwest one sees floating above the wonderful sweep 
of the dazzling glacier the cloudlike heights of the mountains — Cook, 
thirteen thousand seven hundred and tifty-seven feet liigh, and Mt. St. 
Elias, which the United States Coast Survey reckoned to be more than 
nineteen thousand feet high but has since been found to be a thousand 
feet lower than that. It is visible one hundred and fifty miles out at sea. 
It is the dominating peak of the range and gives its name to it, though 



194 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

Logan, which can not be seen from the sea, is fifteen hundred feet 
higher. Professor I. C. Russell, who was sent by the National Geo- 
graphic Society to explore it, and who reached an elevation of fourteen 
thousand five hundred feet, says of the peak which Bering called the 
holshaya shapka or great cap: " At length the great pyramid form- 
ing the culminating point of all the region burst into full view. What 
a glorious sight ! The great mountain seemed higher and grander and 
more regularly proportioned than any peak I had ever beheld before. 
The white plain formed by the Seward Glacier made an even fore- 
ground, which gave distance to the foothills forming the western margin 
of the glacier. Far above the angular crest of the Samovar Hills in the 
middle distance towered St. Elias, sharp and clear against the evening 
sky. So majestic was St. Elias that other magnificent peaks scarcely 
received a second glance." 

Mrs. Higginson says: — " For one whole day the majestic mountain 
and its beautiful companion peaks were in sight of the steamer before 
the next range came into view. The sea breaks sheer upon the ice- 
palisades of the glacier. Icebergs, pale green, pale blue, and rose-col- 
ored, march out to meet, and bowing, pass the ship. ... On one side 
are miles and miles of violet ocean sweeping away into limitless space, 
a fleck of sunlight flashing like a firefly in every hollowed wave; on 
the other, miles on miles of glistening ice, crowned by peaks of softest 
snow. At sunset warm purple mists drift in and settle over the gla- 
cier ; above these float banks of deepest rose ; through both, and above 
them, glimmer the mountains pearlily, in a remote loveliness that seems 
not of earth." 

In the St. Elias group there are nine mountains, the altitude of 
which exceed ten thousand feet — magnificent giant brothers of the 
North, offering the mountain climber opportunities enough to display 
skill and courage. 

It was nearly a century and a half after Bering discovered Mt. St. 
Elias, before any attempt was made to ascend it. Frederick Schwatka 
and a party supported by the New York Times, tried it in 1886 but 



SITKA. 195 

failed to reach the hase. In 1888 a party of four, three Englishmen and 
an American, attained an altitude of eleven thousand four hundred 
feet. In 1890 I. C. Eussell and Mark B. Karr would have reached the 
top had it not been for a severe storm. Eussell reached an altitude 
of fourteen thousand five hundred feet. In 1897 the Duke of the 
Abruzzi with a berg expedition succeeded in attaining the summit. 
This was determined by the Coast Survey as eighteen thousand and 
twenty-four feet. The chief difficulty consists in the great distance 
from any source of supplies. From St. Elias the boundary line of 
Alaska runs due north to Demarcation Point on the Arctic Ocean. 

At the entrance of Controller Bay, across from Cape Suckling, is 
the large Island of Kayak, which is notable for the splendid headland 
called Cape St. Elias, which juts out into the stormy waters of the 
Pacific and is beaten by terrific surf. The town of Kayak is on Wing- 
ham Island, where Bering landed in 1741, and which was named Kaye 
Island by Cook thirty-seven years later. This was in honor of an other- 
wise unknown clergyman who happened to have given Captain Cook 
two silver coins buried in a bottle containing the date of the discovery 
and the names of his ships. 

Controller is notable for its oil wells, which have been bored here 
and there over a distance of two or three thousand square miles. Ka- 
talla, on the mainland at the head of the bay, sprang into sudden im- 
portance, and most of the business of Kayak was transferred to the 
mushroom town. It was founded in 1904 and immediately became the 
terminus of a proposed railway. Unfortunately Katalla had no good 
harbor, only an open roadstead, and on many occasions visiting steam- 
ships had been unable to land their freight and passengers. The story 
is told of a portable bank that was brought there three times and had 
finally to be transported back to Seattle. Beyond the delta mouth of 
the great Copper Eiver, across the peninsula, on the shore of Prince 
William Sound Lies the new town of Cordova, which has a good harbor. 

It was a question for a time which would be the terminus of the rail- 
way communicating with the rich regions of the upper Copper Valley. 



196 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

Kival companies engaged iu almost medioBval warfare. Rights of way 
crossed, and tracks were laid by one company only to be torn up by 
the other. Fortifications were thrown up and armed men were sta- 
tioned ready to fight with their lives. In the same way the right of 
way through the narrow Keystone Caiion was assailed and defended. 
A pitched battle took place; one man was killed and three were 
wounded. Both companies were backed by millions and the interests 
were enormous. 

The distance from Katalla to Cordova in a straight line is only 
about fifty miles, around by sea it is three times as far. Between 
them flows the Copper Eiver. It was called Atnah by the natives, 
who prevented Serebrennikof from exploring its recesses and killed 
him and his men. It was first successfully ascended by Lieutenant 
H. T. Allen, who, having reached its head waters, crossed the divide 
and sailed down the Tanana to the Yukon. It is the master river 
of that region. It rises on the eastern slope of Mt. Wrangel and 
after flowing north for forty miles turns southwest for fifty miles. At 
a distance of one hundred and fifty miles it is joined by the Chitina 
Eiver and having half circled the vast group of mountains dominated 
by Wrangel it turns to the south and cuts its way through the Chugatch 
Eange and reaches the Pacific one hundred and fifty miles west of St. 
Elias. The river is a typical glacial stream, very muddy and turbulent, 
flowing swiftly through tremendous canons and in places faced by por- 
tentous glaciers. The Miles Glacier lifts ice cliffs for sis miles just 
below the Abercrombie Eapids, at the head of which is the terminus 
of the Copper Eiver Eailway. In sunnuer steamboats ply the upper 
reaches of the Coioper Eiver and the Chitina. The whole region is 
marvellously rich in metals. It is confidently expected that it will rival 
aU others in the production of copper. The Bonanza Mine, which was 
purchased for seventy-two thousand dollars in 1900, was sold eight 
years later for more than a million. This is only one of dozens of 
other claims, all promising enormous returns. 

The whole region is wildly mountainous and e^ddently of volcanic 



SITKA. 197 

origin. There are not less tlian a dozen peaks of twelve thousand feet 
altitude rising from that one valley. Mr. Robert Dun in the summer 
of 1908 succeeded in climbing to the top of Mt. Wrangel, ' ' the whitest, 
widest dome shaped pile on earth." Some of his experiences were 
blood curdling. Once, at a height of ten thousand one hundred and 
fifteen feet, as he was trying to get some photographs, he slumped 
through the snow into a crevasse. " Legs and body," he says, " were 
dangling into nothingness, elbows spread and clutching on the yielding 
snow. During that shred of a second's fall, all substance inside my 
head, all the air outside, thickened into something dense and leaden. 
All the blood surged outward to surfaces and extremities, but with no 
flush of wannth. I hung there looking down at the two slithery green 
walls converging into doom." With the aid of his one companion he 
managed to wriggle back into safety. 

After a desperate climb of four thousand feet more, prodding for 
every step till their arms ached, they got near the crater. " I crackled 
over the last snow," he says, " and leaped upon that ash, in that damp 
and tarnishing breath of the earth's bowels, with a mingled thrill of 
victory and apprehension that was glorious . . . ran up the ridge of 
fumaroles and came out. It was two o'clock. Beyond, on the far side, 
was snow, snow everywhere. A plain, two, three miles across — you 
could not tell through the refractive haze. The vast dead chasm was 
filled chuck-a-block, a brimming bowl of ice. Think of it ! — thirteen 
thousand feet and more above the sea, all but tangent to the Arctic 
Circle, immutable in the swing of seasons — the world knows no desert 
like it." He thus describes the living crater: — 

" A curtain of fog was snatched away. A tooth — a gigantic incisor 
pointing upward — appeared on the southwest rim of the snow desert. 
To the right, on a fragment of outer slope, ran black ribs, creeping with 
slow vapors, downward into the neve. But except for this the cone 
was all an oval of darkness. A great cavity was blazoned there, yawn- 
ing upward to its tip. Streaked and crumbling cliffs wavered behind 
the concealing steam. In a momentary stillness of the air the shreds 



198 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

of vapor thinned and hovered and drooped along the rims. Then they 
arose at the centre in hairlike spires, as from a simmering vat. Clink- 
ery cave and corrugation sprang forth in horrid reticulation. The 
thing seemed to suspend its breath like a living being." 

A storm came on suddenly and they retreated while still they could 
make out their tracks. After terrible hours, it cleared again and once 
more they mounted toward the crater. More than once they caved 
into the " ash-tained and heat-riddled neve" to climb out dripping 
with muddy water that froze instantly. " Thus," he says, " we 
climbed, slipped back, climbed up that transient traitorous wall, as it 
bulged out here in a glossy mud spring, there was caverned with un- 
knowable dread ; toiled like beings in a tread-mill — one that might 
explode or crumble in a jiffy into the soul and centre of the earth's 
secret being; and over us the tented smoke rolling, rolling, all but 
touched our eyelids." 

At last they reached the very top and had forty minutes to see the 
marvellous panorama, to locate peaks, to take notes and photographs 
" all in a frenzied rush." This was a bit of the view: — 

" A dappled floor of white and blue opal cloud hid all the world. 
Miles sheer down, Chetudina Glacier, a very Gehenna of crevasses, 
phmged under it. We got not a glimpse of the Copper valley, nor 
at the two-mile-high crest of Mount Drum. Anyhow, what mattered 
panoramas? North all was clearer, by the twin hazy nubs and the 
thumb of Mount Zanetti, and Mount Sanford raised by mirage in an 
orange mist and tilted toward us like a reflection in a concave mirror. 
And — blessed that we had eyes to see it ! — the broad shoulders of 
McKinley (magnetic west, exactly), like one lighted window of an 
invisible house of splendor on the uttennost horizon. ' ' 

The Wrangel Mountains are regarded as separate from the Coast 
Range. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A SOUND OF GLACIERS. 

PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND, or more properly Archipelago, 
covers twenty-five hundred square miles. It contains about fifty 
islands, most of which rise abruptly out of the water and attain 
heights varying from a thousand to three thousand feet. Montague, 
or Sukluk, Hinchinbrook, or Nutchek, and Hawkins Islands cut off 
the gulf from the Northern Pacific. Montague Island is forty-five miles 
long and six or seven miles wide. Its mountains like all the rest give 
evidence of glacial action. There are six long fjords separating tongues 
of mountainous land from the mainland with which they are generally 
connected by a narrow neck. Here the heights reach an elevation of 
five or six thousand feet and otfer a wonderful variety of beautiful 
scenery. The sediment bronght down by the various mouths or sloughs 
of the Copper River have made an area of mud flats in some places 
fifteen miles wide. The sail through the archipelago is most en- 
trancing. Mr. Muir thought the view to the west one of the most 
enchanting he had ever seen: " Peak over peak, dipping deep into 
the sky, a thousand of them, icy and shining, rising higher, higher, 
beyond and yet beyond another burning bright in the afternoon light, 
purple cloud bars above them, purple shadows in the hollows and gi^eat 
breadths of sun-spangled, ice-dotted waters in front." 

There are views of distant snow-capped mountains; the channel 
runs close to wooded shores with glimpses of meadows and glorious 
glades. Sometimes the abrupt shore towers almost overhead. Many 
of the fjords are filled with living glaciers; of the eleven principal 
ones the most remarkable is the Colmnbia, which is four miles wide 



200 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

and three hundred feet high, situated on the western side of the en- 
trance to Valdez. 

" In ordinary light," says Mrs. Higginson, " the front of the glacier 
is beautifully blue. It is a blue that is never seen in anything save a 
glacier or a floating iceberg — a pale, pale blue that seems to flash out 
fire with every movement. At sunset its beauty holds one spellbound. 
It sweeps down magnificently from the snow-peaks which form its fit 
setting and pushes out into the sea in a solid wall of spired and pin- 
nacled opal which, ever and anon breaking off, flings over it clouds 
of color which dazzle the eyes. At times there is a display of prismatic 
colors across the front, which grow, fade, and grow again, the most 
beautiful rainbow shadings. They come and go swiftly and noiselessly, 
affecting one somewhat like Northern Lights — so still, so brilliant, 
so mysterious." 

All of the region of Prince William Sound is now a national forest 
preserve. 

The town of Valdez was founded in 1898 and owed its prosperity to 
the traffic attendant on the Klondike hejira. That first year three thou- 
sand people sailed up through the exquisite Puerto de Valdes, at the 
upper end of the Sound and climbed along the glacier through the fast- 
nesses of the canon-streaked Chugatch to that enticing realm of gold. 
The canvas town was speedily replaced by one more substantial. Val- 
dez has now a population of twenty-five hundred. The houses are 
small but comfortable and in some cases the old Russian's advice about 
artistic surroundings seems to have been followed. The climate is 
not more severe than that of Washington, D. C, and in summer there 
is a profusion of flowers. Though it is four hundred and fifty miles 
farther north than Sitka, its winter climate is only ten degrees colder 
and its harbor is open all the year. Strongly constructed piers are built 
out into deep water, the electric light is in universal use as well as the 
telephone. The town boasts of schools, churches and a hospital, two 
newspapers, hotels and restaurants, excellent shops, a brewery and 
factories, saw-mills and saloons, and many other adjuncts to civiliza- 



A SOUND OF GLACIERS. 201 

tion. There are almost as many dogs as in Constantinople. The vis- 
itor first sees them waiting on the wharf. They know when the steamer 
comes, and hasten down to do the honors. 

Valdez is situated on a level plain between two glacial streams that 
flow down lined with alders, cottonwoods, willows and other trees. 
Back of the city rises the dead glacier, slowly wearing away in its grave, 
sweeping down between glittering mountains. With plenty of time to 
spare one may take horses and follow the famous trail into the Tanana 
country. Ten miles out after an enchanting view of the Lowe River 
valley winding in its reaches of silvery stream a thousand feet below, 
one comes to Camp Comfort, where in the early days as many as sev- 
enty miners returning with gunny sacks filled with gold have slept 
at one time. Not all were so fortimate. 

Beyond a goodly stretch of primeval forest the trail strikes the 
famous Keystone Canon, the walls of which rise from twelve to fifteen 
hundred feet above the roaring river, and follows along on such a 
narrow ledge that a single misstep would precipitate horse and rider 
into dizzy depths. The men returning with empty pockets probably 
cared little to stop and contemplate the Bridal Veil Fall which leaps 
off into the canon from a height of six hundred feet. From Wortman's 
roadhouse to the summit of Thompson Pass is a seven miles' jaunt and 
it is the proper thing to see the sun rise from that precipice. Unnamed 
and unnumbered peaks rise into the blue, all crowned with snow which 
takes on the most exquisite tints of pearly blue or pink. In every 
direction are valleys eaten out by dashing streams whose musical voices 
fill the silences. In sunmier there are vast reaches covered with vivid- 
hued flowers — violets, harebells, wild geraniums, anemones and but- 
tercups. 

Occasionally the trail dips into a level valley and then one has views 
of sweeping mountains from below. Heights of two miles pei-pendic- 
ular are not uncommon. One of the most impressive mountains thus 
seen from below is Mt. Drum, which is twelve thousand feet above the 
valley. The view from the summit of Sour-Dough Hill is claimed by 



202 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

some to be unsurpassed in Alaska. From here one sees tlie majestic 
peaks of the Castle Mountains, rivers dashing thunderously down wild 
and sombre canons, valleys filled to the brim with living glaciers, tre- 
mendous cascades taking their leaj) down into the polished sides of 
dark rock. Here one can see the whole length of the Kennicott glacier 
sweeping down for forty miles through the Kennicott Valley from 
Mt. Wrangel and Mt. Regal. Far to the south, dim in the distance, rise 
the peaks of the Coast Eange — a marvellous wilderness of petrified 
billows. 

The valley of the Copper River and its tributaries has been pretty 
thoroughly examined by the Government geologists, and it is believed 
that it is rich not only in metals but in possibilities for thousands of 
small farmers who will raise all kinds of vegetables as well as rye and 
barley. Only a hundred and sixty miles from Valdez Daniel Kain with 
only a shovel took out in two days five ounces of coarse gold on the 
headwaters of Dan Creek which runs into the Nizina. It is noticeable 
that most of the rivers that flow into the Copper and into the Tanana 
bear their Indian names in contradistinction to the bays and sounds 
that were named by the early navigators. 

The trail from Valdez leads to the richest copper mine so far dis- 
covered in Alaska. Reports of the presence of that metal had been 
brought in by Indians and others; but not until the summer of 1898 
did any success attend the efforts of prospectors to locate it. Men 
who penetrated the Wrangel Mountains in 1899 by the route of the 
Kotsina River discovered the Nikolai mine in July, 1899, under the 
guidance of a native named Jack, who had a map made by Nikolai, chief 
of the Taral Indians. This mine came into the possession of the Chi- 
tina Exploration Company of San Francisco. That same autumn a 
party of ten men entered into an agreement to prospect in the interior, 
all property found to be held for their joint benefit. Among them was 
R. F. McClennan, who had discovered the Nikolai mine. All but two 
of the party separated for the winter. Two of them, Clarence Warner 
and Jack Smith, who remained in Valdez, started in March to climb 



A SOUND OF GLACIERS. 205 

the trail into the interior. The snow was from six to ten feet deep 
and they were not able to make more than five or six miles a day even 
after almost superhimian exertions. When they reached the so-called 
McCarthy cache about fifteen miles east of Copper River on the trail 
to the Nikolai mine, they found that Indians had broken into it 
and stolen nearly all the provisions, amounting to several thousand 
pounds. 

During the winter McClenuan had made an agreement with the Chi- 
tina Company to work during the summer on the Nikolai mine. When 
he, in company with a number of men and horses, reached the McCarthy 
cabin he found Smith and Warner there. A great dispute immediately 
ensued and McClennan packed in all Smith and Warner's provisions 
to the Nikolai mine, which is situated on Nikolai creek about a thousand 
feet above the timber line. These two men set out in July Vidth packs 
on their backs to prospect. After wandering aimlessly for two days 
they camped one noon near a small stream that came tearing down 
from the mountains. Warner happened to glance upward and saw 
something green. It could not be grass. With great exertion the two 
men managed to clamber up a hundred and fifty feet to the western 
slope of the ridge and there they came across a mass of ore cutting 
across greenstone and limestone and exposed for about four feet. It 
proved to be pure chalcocite or copper glance. They found solid masses 
of the ore from two to four feet across and fifteen feet long here and 
there. They were experienced miners and they knew the value of their 
discovery. Several tons were in sight. When it was analyzed it gave 
more than seventy per cent, of pure copper and fourteen ounces of 
silver besides a trace of gold. 

This was the origin of the great Bonanza mine, the richest copper 
mine so far discovered in the Northwest. They were not allowed to 
claim it without a bitter fight. The lawsuit lasted several years and 
was one of the most dramatic ever fought out in the courts. Charges 
of bribery and corruption were freely made. It was finally decided 
in favor of the discoverers. Smith located another claim across Me- 



20G ' OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

Carthy Creek and disposed of it for one hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars. 

The Government trail from the Copper River, indeed from Valdez, 
has been pretty carefully laid out and is not at all difficult in the sum- 
mer. 

The Indians were accustomed to make use of a portage from their 
Chugach Bay to Cook Inlet, so close lie these two great bodies of in- 
land waters, though by ship it is a voyage of several hundred miles. 

The ordinary tourist does not go beyond Valdez in a suimner excur- 
sion to Alaska, but if he desires he can take a steamer which sails about 
the middle of each month and visits some of the settlements to the 
westward. Separating the great Chugach Gulf from historic Cook's 
Inlet is the remarkable Kenai Peninsula. This peninsula is heavily 
wooded, the forests climbing its mountains to a height of two thousand 
feet, the timber being principally spruce with large areas of hemlock, 
birch and other trees. The land is fertile and the climate suitable for 
many kinds of agriculture. Berries abound and the hay crop is fre- 
quently abundant. The surrounding waters swarm with fish and the 
rivers are the home of the multitudinous salmon. Col. Caine, speaking 
of the scenery of the Kenai Peninsula, says : — 

" The view was sublime. To our right the enormous glacier from 
which this branch of the Indian Eiver issues filled up the whole of the 
head of the deep valley, the precipitous sides of which fell almost per- 
pendicularly to its foot in cliffs a thousand feet high, till it met the 
sky line ten miles away. Beyond the gorge mountain after mountain 
stretched away as far as eye could reach with a glimpse between two 
peaks of another glacier." 

Even more enthusiastic is the naturalist, A. J. Stone, who visited 
the region in the interests of science : — 

"It is a land of magnificent rugged mountains, and of beautiful 
rolling meadow lands ; a land of eternal fields of glistening snow and 
ice, and of everlasting fires of burning lignite; of frozen moss and 
lichen-covered plains and of vegetation that is tropical in its luxuriance; 



A SOUND OF GLACIERS. 207 

a land of extensive coal fields, smoking volcanoes, and of earthquakes 
so frequent as to fail to excite comment among its natural residents; 
of charming quiet bays and harbors, and of tides and tide-rips among 
the greatest in the world; of almost endless days ia summer, and of 
gray dismal wiater nights; of an abundant animal life both in the 
water and on the land. Nowhere else in the world does nature exert 
herself in so many ways as in the Kenai Peninsula. The waters, the 
mountains, the great rivers of ice, the vegetable and animal life all 
vie with each other in the production of something unusual and won- 
derful." 

The principal town on the peninsula is Seward, situated on Resur- 
rection Bay and designed as the terminus of the Alaska Central Rail- 
way. The town site was purchased of a pioneer family for four thou- 
sand dollars. It has all the aspect of a frontier lumber town. The 
business streets have a picturesque melange of un-uprooted stumps, 
cabins made of birch logs, and more permanent edifices, such as 
churches, banks, a library and a hospital. There is a good wharf and 
a sufficient harborage which is open all winter. Here Baranof is said 
to have built his famous ship the Feniks. 

The Alaskan Central Railway was projected to penetrate the rich 
mining region of the Tanana Valley and it was estimated that it would 
cost twenty-five million dollars. The route was to strike Turnagain 
Arm, where there are profitable gold mines, and then to follow up the 
valley of the Susitna. Passengers by this line would get a magnificent 
view of the Alaskan Range of mountains and particularly of Mt. Mc- 
Kinley, which lifts its snow-crowned head to a height of more than 
twenty thousand feet, being now recognized as the monarch of all Amer- 
ican mountains, though not much higher than its neighbor Mt. Foster. 

Dr. Cook describes the view from the top of McKinley, which he 
claims to have reached in company with Edward Barille. 

" It was September sixteenth, the temperature sixteen degrees below 
zero, the altitude twenty thousand three hundred and sixty feet. The 
Arctic Circle was in sight ; so was the Pacific Ocean. We were inter- 



208 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

ested mostly, not in the distant scenes, but in the very strange anomaly 
of our immediate surroundings. It was ten o'clock in the morning, 
the sky was as black as that of midnight. At our feet the snow glittered 
with a ghastly light. As the eye ran down we saw the upper clouds 
drawn out in loose strings, and still farther down the big cumulus 
forms, and through the gap far below, seemingly in the interior of the 
earth, bits of rugged landscape. The frightful, uncanny aspect of the 
outlook made us dizzy. Fifty thousand square miles of our arctic won- 
derland was spread out under our enlarged horizon, but we could see 
it only in sections. Various trains of morning clouds screened the 
lowlands and eastward the lesser peaks. We could see the narrow 
silvery bands marking the course of the Yukon and the Tanana, while 
to the south, looking over nearby clouds, we had an unobstructed view. 
Mt. Susitna, one hundred miles away in a great green expanse was 
but a step in the run of distance. The icy cones of the burning vol- 
canoes, Redoubt, Iliamna and Chirabora, the last two hundred miles 
away, were clearly visible with their rising vapors. Still farther the 
point of Kenai Peninsula, and beyond the broad sweep of the Pacific, 
two hundred and fifty miles away. ' ' 

The railway has fallen into financial diflSculties and beyond a dis- 
tance of fifty-three miles exists only on paper. It is only a question 
of time when the great interests involved will necessitate its extension 
to Fairbanks. It would tap splendid spruce forests, the fine coals of 
the Matanuska, rich mines of gold and copper and serve an agricultural 
population that is certain to fill the fertile valleys under the Govern- 
ment homestead act which grants settlers farms of three hundred and 
twenty acres. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SUMMEELAND. 

THE scenery of Cook's Inlet is almost as magnificent and varied 
as that of the Chugach Gulf. Cape Douglas is a most imposing 
promontory thrusting into the sea for several miles and then 
opposing a sheer bluff for a thousand feet. Between Cape Elizabeth 
and Cape Douglas the entrance is fifty miles wide. As it were guard- 
ing the bay stands the dead volcano of St. Augustine, a perfectly sym- 
metrical cone, which rises to a height of three thousand feet, glittering 
with snow packed into every seam. Along the western shore is a chain 
of active volcanoes, the loftiest of which is Iliamna Peak, whose smok- 
ing crest rises to a height of twelve thousand and sixty-six feet. It is 
snow-clad to the top. It was last in eruption in 1854 but the evanescent 
smoke-wreaths curling around the steep simimit make it evident that 
the internal fires are only slumbering. At its foot lies Iliamna Lake, 
the second largest body of fresh water in Alaska. It is perhaps sev- 
enty-five miles long and from fifteen to twenty-five miles wide. It 
drains into Bristol Bay on Bering Sea by the Kuichak River, and the 
salmon which seek its waters furnish material for one of the largest 
canneries in Alaska. Northeast from Iliamna is another volcano called 
by the Russians the Burning Mountain. It is mapped now as Redoubt. 
It rises to a height of eleven thousand two hundred and seventy feet 
and constantly sends up clouds of smoke. At its last eruption in 1867 
the gray ashes were drifted over to islands more than one hundred and 
fifty miles distant. In 1902 it was pouring forth dense black smoke 
and vivid sheets of flame. Redoubt too has its lake. It bears the com- 
mon name of Clarke and is long, though not so wide as Iliamna with 

209 



210 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

which it is connected by the Nogheling Eiver. It is a paradise for 
hunters. On the Kenai Peninsula and along the Alaskan Range roam 
the fierce Kenai grizzlies. One may sometimes fall in with the fierce 
Kadiak brown bear which equals the grizzlies in ferocity and is the 
largest carnivorous animal known, often attaining a length of ten or 
twelve feet. There are also black and cinnamon bears. The stringent 
and excellent game laws ' require a permit for hunters to kill them. 
The moose here attains the enormous weight of sixteen hundred pounds 
and with a spread of antlers of five or six feet. They are numerous 
in the wooded valleys of the Kenai Peninsula and on the sides of the 
Alaskan range. Deer, mountain goats and mountain sheep, wolves, 
foxes, caribou, and many other kinds of game abound. Colonel Caine 
declares this region one of the finest natural hunting grounds in the 
world. 

A tremendous tide runs up Cook Inlet. As it narrows it rises and 
falls from twenty to twenty-seven feet and the natives, " the Cossacks 
of the sea " who are skilful in the use of their walrus-hide bidarkas, 
sometimes use the bore as a sort of marine toboggan slide. Big steam- 
ers touch only at Seldovia, which has no wharf, and at Homer, on the 
northern side of Kachemak Bay, where there is a good wharf. The 
town is practically deserted owing to the setback which coal mining 
received a few years ago. This subsidiary bay has coal mines and 
glaciers. Burroughs says of it : — " Grandeur looked down on it from 
the mountains around, especially from the great volcanic peaks. Iliamna 
and Redoubt, sixty miles across the inlet to the west." 

To reach the upper end of the inlet and its finger-stretching arms 
one has to wait the pleasure of some small steamer which makes the 
trip at irregular intervals. Cook supposed the inlet that bears his name 
was a big river and when he found that the eastern branch was only 
a cul de sac he called it Turnagain. It is about thirty miles in length. 
The great river Susitna, which drains a region of eight thousand square 

' Mr. McLain calls the game laws of Alaska cruel because they rob the Indians of a market 
for their furs during the season when they are most available. 



SUMMERLAND. 211 

miles and is iia\'igable almost up to the flanks of Mt. McKinley, flows 
into the inlet two hundred and sixty miles from the entrance. 

Vancouver describes the region bordering on the bays that variegate 
this great inland sea as " low, wooded, and rising with a gradual as- 
cent, until at the inner point of the entrance when the shores suddenly 
rise to lofty eminences in nearly perpendicular cliffs, and compose stu- 
pendous mountains that are broken into chasms and deep gullies. 
Down these," he continues, " rushed immense torrents of water, ren- 
dering the naked sides of these precipices awfully gi'and; on their 
tops grew a few stunted pine trees, but they were nearly destitute of 
every other vegetable production." 

The climate of this region is so balmy that the Russians called it 
Summerland. Fruits, vegetables and grain come to maturity and are 
delicious in flavor. Cows and hens flourish and one can always have 
good butter and eggs. The ultimate exploitation of the coal fields which 
will suffice for centuries for the whole Pacific Coast will assure the 
future of this wonderful Aleutian country. The opinion held by the 
Interior Department that all of these natural monopolies in coal should 
be retained by the Government for the benefit of the whole people is 
one that will assuredly commend itself to the judgment of our descend- 
ants who will have cause enough to regret the undemocratic concen- 
tration of these enormous treasures in the hands of a comparatively 
small part of the population. The oldest coal mine in Alaska is situated 
on the western shore of the inlet. It was worked by the Russians 
under the direction of German miners who ran a drift into the vein 
for seventeen hundred feet, but though they took out nearly three thou- 
sand tons the venture was not profitable, as the coal proved to be of 
too poor a quality for steamships. 

All voyageurs agree as to the splendor of the scenery throughout this 
region. Mr. R. H. Sargent of the United States Geological Survey thus 
describes the view of the Alaska range of Mountains as seen from an 
elevation of about twenty-five hundred feet on the western slope of the 
Talkitna grouj} : — 



212 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

*' The day was perfect; not a cloud could be seen in the heavens. 
Below lay the broad, level valley of the Susitna Eiver, beautifully car- 
peted in the deep gieen of the coniferae, while here and there a shining 
patch of light, outlining a lake, broke the monotony, and through the 
centre of it all the Susitna wound like a silver trail. 

" Across the valley, fifty miles away, the foothills of the Alaska 
Range rose, rugged, angular, and formidable, their cold, gray, serrated 
peaks often resembling clusters of spires; while back of them, dwarf- 
ing to the height of mere foothills in comparison, Mount Dall, Mount 
Eussell and Mount Foraker stood like white-clad guardians to their 
chief. A sweep of the horizon from the south to the northeast, where 
the view was cut off by the adjacent mountains, gave the grandest pano- 
rama imaginable. Far away in the distance could be seen the volcanoes 
Iliamna and Redoubt, on the western shore of Cook Inlet, while at the 
other extremity Mount Hayes towered high above everything about it. 
Between these two the waving crest-line of the range was now painted 
in the green of a river valley, now cold, steel gray, as it outlined the 
lower peaks, gradually becoming whitened as it reached its crest, and 
then on through the same transition until lost to view." 

Southwest from the Kenai Peninsula, and on the same parallel as 
Sitka and the Pribilof Islands, is Kadiak, or Kodiak, next to Prince 
of Wales Island the largest of all the Alaskan islands. It was dis- 
covered in 1763 by Stepan Glottof, whose ship was fiercely attacked 
by the natives. As usual gunpowder triumphed. In 1784 Shelikof 
established his first trading-post at Three-Saints Bay on the south- 
eastern shore. At that time he reported the natives as numbering 
fifty thousand. This was a gross exaggeration — probably there were 
not a tenth as many. They called themselves Kaniagmut. He de- 
scribed them as tall, healthy, and strong, generally round-faced, of 
light brown coloi', the hair black and prevalently bunched forward over 
the forehead and cut off at the eyebrows. Perhaps because of the 
delightful climate they were a braver, finer and more intelligent people 
than the other Aleuts. The Kadiak bears are also larger and fiercer 



SUMMERLAND. 213 

than any other of the Alaska flesh-eating mammals, and the moose 
grows there to colossal size. The island is a hundred miles long and 
about forty wide. Its mountains rise to a height of not more than 
five thousand feet and are smoothly rounded; the valleys are filled 
with luxuriant grass; there are no forests except on the Eastern end. 

The tremendous convulsion of nature which separated Kadiak from 
the mainland seems to be turned into a myth by the native legend which 
relates how an inunense otter trying to thread the waterways got caught 
and could not free himself. His struggles resulted in pushing the 
islands into the Pacific, leaving the straits that now bear the name of 
Shelikof. 

Shelikof was obliged to subdue the natives by force. Great cruelty 
was practised in compelling them to hunt for the Eussians. At the 
same time attempts were made to convert them. Here the first mis- 
sionary work on the northwest coast was carried on. This was sup- 
plemented in 1796 by a school, opened by Father Juvenal, who reported 
the natives as deeply impressed though they did not understand the 
language of the service. 

Baranof transferred the settlement to the northern end of the island 
and there in 1796 the first " Orthodox " Greek church was built. It 
is still shown with pride. It is painted white and is surrounded with 
a white fence and by trees. The steeple carries a chime of bells and 
is surmounted by the characteristic Eussian cross with its three trans- 
verse bars, the lowest slanting. The interior is much less elaborate 
than the church in Sitka. 

The great log warehouse in which the furs and stores of the Shelikof 
Company were kept is also a mute witness to the immensity of the 
transactions of those early days. The Northern Commercial Company 
still maintains one of its branches in the town and the residence which 
stands on a commanding eminence is a great centre of hospitality for 
visitors. 

Visitors are always enthusiastic at the charm of Kadiak. John 
Burroughs calls it " bewitching " and breaks into a lyric strain in 



214 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

praise of its emerald heights, flowery vales and vast green solitudes, 
" so secluded, so remote, so peaceful." 

Mrs. Higginsou can scarcely find adjectives enough : — She describes 
the clouds " like broken columns of pearl " that " pushed languorously 
up through the misty gold of the atmosphei'e," the long slopes of the 
hill-side vividly green and the acres of brilliant bloom. 

" To one climbing the hill behind the village," she says, " island 
beyond island drifted into view, with blue waterways winding through 
velvety labyrinths of green ; and beyond all, the strong, limitless sweep 
of ocean. The winds were but the softest zephyrs, touching the face 
and hair like rose petals, or other delicate, visible things; and the air 
was fragrant with things that grow day and night and that fling their 
splendor forth in one riotous rush of bloom. Shaken through and 
through their perfume was that thrilling, indescribable sweetness which 
abides in vast spaces where snow mountains glimmer and the opaline 
palisades of glaciers shine." 

A short distance across from the town of Kodiak is Wood Island, 
where were once stationed the head-quarters of the American-Russian 
Ice ComiDany, the ruins of the big buildings being still visible. The 
manager of the company lived in luxurious style and is said to have 
constructed the first road in Alaska. It skirts the island and is about 
thirteen miles long. There is a remarkably successful Baptist Orphan- 
age for native children on this island. The girls are taught housework, 
the boys learn to do farming. The climate is such that although grain 
does not fill out, all vegetables thrive — potatoes averaging two hun- 
dred and fifty bushels to the acre — and it is a paradise for cattle. 
They raise angora goats and their dairy products are of the first 
quality. Wood Island has also a Greek Russian church and a 
mission. 

At the mouth of the shallow Karluk River, which flows sixteen miles 
down into the Shelikof Strait, is one of the largest salmon canning fac- 
tories in Alaska. It is provided with every labor-saving device. The 
whole operation is very interesting, but is conducted on such an enor- 



SUMMERLAND. 215 

mous scale that it makes the judicious tremble for the fate of the 
salmon. 

The fish which swarm into this little river by the millions, making 
an almost solid stream, are caught in a net nine or ten feet wide and 
almost half a mile long paid out by a tug. One end is made fast ; the 
other is hauled in by a windlass. When it has narrowed the enclosed 
area to a few hundred square feet, barges eighteen or twenty feet long 
and half as wide are brought along side and filled with a squirming, 
struggling mass of big salmon. These are emptied into bins and the 
butchers take them out and cut off their heads, fins and tails. Human 
labor became so skilful that a single man would thus treat three hun- 
dred an hour ; but a recently perfected machine works far more expe- 
ditiously and with vastly less waste. An endless belt carries them to 
another machine which removes the scales, cuts them open and removes 
the entrails while a strong stream of water washes each one thoroughly. 
They are then inspected and if suitable are laid crosswise on an ascend- 
ing series of parallel belts between which are placed rapidly revolving 
knives. These cut them into sections to fit the cans which are rammed 
full of fish, capped and soldered in one operation and at the rate of one 
a second. The cans are then heated to a temperature of two hundred 
and twelve degrees and kept so for about an hour. After this each 
can is punctured to allow the gases to escape and when it has been 
resoldered it is again heated for another hour at a temperature of two 
hundred and forty degrees. When it has cooled the Chinese expert tests 
it to see if it is air tight. He can tell by the sound. If the test is sat- 
isfactory the can is labelled and packed in cases. The value of the 
Alaskan salmon industry is not far from ten millions of dollars a year. 

The law requires canneries to maintain salmon hatcheries. That at 
Karluk is regarded as one of the most successful and costs not far from 
twenty thousand dollars a year to support. It released one hundred 
and seventy-four millions of fry in 1906 and its output in 1908 was 
more than two hundred millions. 

The hatchery consists of about a dozen ponds with a fall of from 



216 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

four to six feet between them, fed by a siiiall creek and by springs. 
The lower ponds are used for " ripening " the salmon. They are 
spawned by hand. Ten weeks after the fry are hatched they are fed 
with tinned salmon meat. When they are freed they make their way 
into salt water but do not travel far. At the end of the second year, 
if they sur\ave their numerous enemies they are about eight inches 
long, take on bright scales, and are called " smolt." They pass out 
to sea between March and June and when they return in the autumn 
they are called " grilse " and weigh four or five pounds. The corrals 
in the lagoon of the Karluk Eiver cover an area of about three acres. 
Here are taken the " stock-fish " for ripening. The hatching house 
contains a large number of troughs made of red-wood and treated so 
as to prevent all leakage. End to end they would extend nearly a thou- 
sand feet, and accommodate almost as many salmon. The \'iew from 
the hatchery looking across Shelikof Strait to the snow-clad mountains 
of Alaska peninsula is particularly charming for those who like bold 
and wild scenery. 



CHAPTER XX. 

KOSAEY EMERALDS. 

THE Aleutian Islands have been compared to " an emerald rosary 
on the blue breast of Bering Sea." Charles Sumner speaking 
of them in his great Alaska speech said that they stretched 
" far away to Japan as if America were extending a friendly hand 
to Asia." Kadiak has an attendant swarm of smaller islands, like a 
planet with moons. There are Afognak, Tugidak, Sitkinak, Malmot, 
Spruce, Chirikof and Semidi. Several of these islands have been pre- 
empted for the propagation of foxes. About the year 1894 the Semidi 
Propagation Company was organized to domesticate and raise foxes. 
The first fox farm was stocked from the Pribilof Islands. There are 
now between thirty and forty islands where this industry is carried 
on. The largest fox farm is on Long Island, one of the Kadiak group, 
where there are about a thousand blue foxes. It has been so far found 
impracticable to domesticate the larger and more valuable silver-gray 
fox. The islands utilized for this purpose are taken out from the pro- 
visions of the homestead laws. The industry is proving a godsend for 
the natives whose livelihood has been so injured by the ruin of the seal 
fisheries. 

The steamboat that visits Kadiak strikes across southwest to the 
little canning town of Chignik on the mainland. The bay bearing the 
same name is defended by Tuliiumnit Point, sometimes called Castle 
Cape, from its resemblance to " turrets, towers and domes." Its enor- 
mous mass juts out into the sea, gray streaked with rose. 

Still farther southwest are the Shumagin Islands, so named by Bering 
in honor of a Russian sailor who died and was buried on one of them. 
Five or six of them are quite large. Unga, which lies nearest the penin- 



218 OUR NORTHERlSr DOMAIN. 

svAa, lias several settlements and trading-posts. The cod-fislieries ex- 
tend from here in all directions. At Unga there is a Russian Greek 
church more interesting externally than within. At Apollo, three miles 
away, there is a productive mine owned by Califoi-uians. Sandy Point 
is notorious as the scene of a murder worthy of being told by Dosto- 
yevsky. In a lonely house lived a man who had bought a young Aleu- 
tian girl for ten dollars and some tobacco. When she grew older, he 
abused her as if she were his wife. A Kussian half-breed, named 
Gerasimof, fell in love with her and urged her to run away with him. 
She had not the courage. Gerasimof, seeing how she was maltreated, 
killed the brutal man while he was asleep. He was arrested and sen- 
tenced for life to the penitentiary on McNeil's Island. The girl, freed 
from terrible slavery, showed her gratitude by marrying another man 
within a year. The lonely house where the mui'der was committed is 
deserted ; the people believe it to be haunted. 

Directly west of Unga is Pavlof Bay, on which is situated the town 
of Bielkovsky, which was for many years the centre of the sea-otter 
trade. The most dangerous of the enterprises of the Aleuts was to 
catch this valuable little beast, for they frequent the wildest shores, 
disporting in the roughest surf, clinging to the long whi^jping fronds 
of the " sea-otter's cabbage " or nursing their young on the surface 
of the water. They are the shyest of sea-creatures. The natives, dar- 
ingly approaching the shore in their bidarkas, used to spear them with 
ivory-headed sjDears. Sometimes a party of them would go out to- 
gether, and if an otter were discovered they would combine to keep it 
under the water until it was drowned. The sea-otter cannot remain 
under water without breathing for more than twenty minutes. The 
moment it would put its head out, the Aleut, on the watch, would shout 
and scare it under again before it had a chance to breathe. This op- 
eration might take several hours. But the value of the beautiful brown 
fur, especially silver-tipped fur of the deep-sea otter, justifies all risk 
and all expenditure of time and effort. The sea-otter sought for by 
the richest people of Russia and China is now almost extenninated. 



ROSARY EMERALDS. 219 

Bielkovsky has a Russian church and resident priest or pop. Its 
situation is delightful, the volcano not being too near, but it is said to 
need a Hercules to cleanse its Augean filth. 

The long peninsula of Alaska, with its range of mountains and its 
serrated bays, its volcanoes and its numberless ponds draining into 
the icy waters of the northern seas, is separated by a very narrow pass 
from Unimak Island. On this are two active volcanoes, Shishaldin 
and Progomni. Mrs. Higginson goes into raptures over her first sight 
of Shishaldin as she saw it in the soft splendor of an Aleutian sunset : — 

" In the absolute perfection of its conical form, its chaste and delicate 
beauty of outline, and the slender column of smoke pushing up from 
its finely pointed crest, Shishaldin stands alone. Its height is not great, 
only nine thousand feet; but in any company of loftier mountains it 
should shine out with a peerlessness that would set it apart. 

' ' The sunset trembled upon the North Pacific Ocean, changing hourly 
as the evening wore on. Thi'ough scarlet and purple and gold, the 
mountain shone; through lavender, pearl, and rose; growing ever 
more distant and more dim, but not less beautiful. At last it could 
barely be seen, in a flood of rich violet mist, just touched with rose. . . . 
The sea breaks into surf upon Shishaldin 's base, and snow covers the 
slender cone from summit to sea-level, save for a month or two in sum- 
mer when it melts around the base. Owing to the mists, it is almost 
impossible to obtain a sharp negative of Shishaldin from the water. 

" They played with it constantly. They wrapped soft-colored scarfs 
about its crest ; they wound girdles of purple and gold and pearl about 
its middle ; they set rayed gold upon it, like a crown. Now and then, 
for a few seconds at a time, they drew away completely, as if to con- 
template its loveliness ; and then, as if overcome and compelled by its 
dazzling brilliance, they flung themselves back upon it impetuously, 
and crushed it for several moments completely from our view." 

Ships from Nome have to go to the westward of Unimak Island by 
a broad pass separating it from Akun Island. Still another frequently 
used is Akutan pass which separates Akutan from Unalaska, the largest 



220 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

of the hundred Aleutian Islands. Unalaska, whicli is spelled in a dozen 
different ways, and was orig-inally Iliuliuk, means " curving beach." 
Unalaska belongs to the Lisui or Fox Islands. Its harbor is regarded 
as one of the finest in the world, being completely surrounded by lofty 
moimtaius and affording anchorage for the largest ships. The site of 
the Russian church is beautiful. Above it towers the mountain Maku- 
shin, with its flag of white steaming smoke. The bay contracts and 
then spreads out into an inland sea filling a deep valley in the island. 
Mrs. Higginson calls it " one great sparkling sapphire, set deep in 
solid emerald and pearl." In the vicinity of the volcano is a sulphur 
hot spring from which loud cannon-like reports are frequently heard, 
causing the natives to believe that the mountains were engaged in a 
dreadful war. Chirikof first discovered Unalaska in September, 1744. 
Stepan Glottof traded with the natives and found them friendly; he 
procured some black foxes and carried them to Kamchatka; but an- 
other Promuishlenik named Koro^dn, on attempting to settle there, 
was driven away. Glottof came to his assistance, but not until Soloviof 
appeared and massacred them mercilessly were they reduced to passive 
submission. 

Captain Cook in 1778 visited Unalaska and exchanged courtesies 
with the Russian commander. The Russian settlement was at Iliuliuk 
and consisted of thirty Russians. They had a dwelling-house and two 
storehouses. Cook gave a good account of the natives, regarding them 
as the gentlest and most inoffensive people he had ever met with and 
patterns of honesty. He described them as of low stature, plump, and 
well formed, dark-eyed, and dark-haired. The women wore a single 
loose-fitting sealskin gannent and deformed their lips with bone labrets. 
The men wore a garment made of bird-skins, feathers turned inward, 
and over this a translucent garment made of walrus gut. On their 
heads they wore " oval-snouted " caps, dyed in colors and decorated 
with glass beads. The natives lived in hardharas made of earth and 
stones filled into a frame-work of drift-wood or whale ribs, the 
whole covered with sods. The smoke escaped and the people entered 



ROSARY EMERALDS. 223 

through a square opening in tlie roof, which was reached by means of 
a ladder or from the inside by a notched pole. Around the walls were 
low shelves covered with mats or skins and here the inhabitants sat 
or slept. Sometimes several of these bardbaras were connected to- 
gether and as they were occupied by a number of people and were 
warmed by rude oil lamps with grass for wicks, or by a smoking fire, the 
atmosphere may be imagined as beyond description. Their only tools 
were a knife and hatchet ; their meagre household furniture consisted 
of a few bowls, spoons, cans, and baskets, and possibly a Russian pot 
or two. 

They had not regular chiefs but their best huntsmen had the most 
influence and the greatest number of wives. The saintly Veniaminof 
charged them with an inclination toward sensuality which he confessed 
was increased by the bad example and worse teachings of the early 
Russian settlers who taught them to indulge in drunkenness. He recog- 
nized their good qualities, their patience under injury or offence, their 
honesty, their inward sensitiveness, their tenderness to their children, 
their truthfulness and simplicity, their hospitality and generosity. 

This generosity seems to be characteristic of most of the Alaskans. 
Judge McKenzie tells a story which seems to illustrate it. At a settle- 
ment on the Koyukuk, nearly a hundred miles beyond the Arctic Circle, 
a poor old Kobulk called Peter saw a cartoon in which Uncle Sam was 
represented as barefooted. When he learned that it was a picture of 
the " great White Father " at Washington, he pointed to the bare feet 
and said : — 

" No moccasins? " 

" No," said the trader in whose store the cartoon was displayed, 
** Uncle Sam hasn't moccasins." 

Peter looked distressed and went away without saying anything. A 
few days later he came back bringing a pair of moccasins and pointing 
to the cartoon said : — 

" Moccasins: send Uncle Sam." 

Unalaska was formerly a port of entry for all vessels entering or 



224 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

leaving Bering Bay, the rendezvous for the Arctic whaling fleet and 
the anchorage for the American and British gimboats that were after 
illicit sealers. During the early days of the Klondike excitement hun- 
dreds of miners landed there while waiting for transportation to the 
Yukon. There is a large Bussian church with which a successful parish 
school is connected. The only white women resident in the village are 
at the Jessie Lee Home, a Methodist mission which has accomplished 
much in training the young people for useful work. 

Unalaska furnishes excursions of unusiaal interest. About two miles 
away, reached by a fascinating walk, is Dutch Harbor, formerly called 
Lincoln Harbor, where the North American Company has a station 
with framed cottages, all painted white with red roofs, neat and pros- 
perous and prosaic! Only a few miles away is the neat little village 
of Blorka on the shores of Samganuda or English Harbor, where Cap- 
tain Cook anchored and repaired his ships. On the western coast, 
thirty miles away, is Makushin Harbor, where Glottof first landed. The 
view from the summit of the volcano is magnificent. It is not a difficult 
climb. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



A MOUNTAIN OF FIRE. 



DTRECTLY west of Unalaska, directly north of the neighboring 
island of Unmak, is the marvellous and ever changing ocean 
volcano named after Saint John the Evangelist — loann Bo- 
goslof. It was originally an isolated rock famous among the Aleuts 
as a populous resort for seals and sea-lions. In 1795 a peculiar fog 
seemed to hang over this rock and filled the natives with a vague alarm. 
A bold seal hunter approached the rock with the design of catching 
some sea-lions. He returned in haste, reporting that the sea around 
the rock was boiling hot and the supposed fog was steam. No one any 
longer dared go there for fear of spirits. After a long time the fog 
cleared away and a high peak was discovered with smoking top. In 
1806 natives so far conquered their terror as to approach it in their 
bidarkas and they reported that melted stone was running down the 
sides. 

The resident agent of the Russian- American Company witnessed the 
first eruption from the northern shore of Umnak. A storm occurred, 
but when the weather moderated a column of fine rock dust rose high 
in the offing. At night there appeared such a bright glow or incandes- 
cence that it was almost as light as day. Stones were hurled into the 
air and some fell on Umnak. At sunrise the cause of the disturbance 
was seen : — a new black island which looked like a cap. 

Four years later it had ceased smoking but eight years after that 
the ground was still so hot that the sea-lions could not walk on it. In 
1817 it was estimated to have attained a circumference of two miles 
and a half and a height of three hundred and fifty feet. The natives 
called it Agashagok. 

225 



226 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

In 1820 smoke but no fire was seen; it was haunted by sea-lions. 
The circumference was about four miles; its height five hundred feet. 
Others gave its height as twenty- five hundred feet. Tebrakof (in 
1832) thought its altitude was fifteen hundred feet. Dall in 1873 
set its height at eight hundred and fifty feet. It was rapidly disin- 
tegrating. 

In September, 1883, Captain Anderson of the schooner Matthew 
Turner passing saw the new volcano in active eruption throwing out 
heated rock, smoke, steam, and ashes, some of them from fissures be- 
neath the level of the sea. A month later the schooner Dora was pass- 
ing and her captain, whose name was Hague, approached within a 
mile, noting the black smoke as if from burning tar mixed with flames 
and red hot rocks. That same month volcanic dust fell heavily at Una- 
laska. The new volcano proved to be a larger island than Bogoslof. 
Mr. Dall named it Grewingk after the Russian explorer. Its steep cone 
rose to a height of perhaps twelve hundred feet. In 1884 the revenue 
steamer Corwin reached the vicinity and four men were detailed to go 
ashore and investigate. They put the height of the new volcano at five 
hundred feet or less. They found it impossible to climb the peak owing 
to the heat and the sulphurous fumes. The cone was. covered with a 
thin layer of ashes crusted by rain. The explorers sank ankle deep 
through the crust and were choked by the impalpable dust. The tem- 
perature half way to the top was one hundred and ninety degrees. A 
thermometer made to register two hundred and sixty degrees exploded 
when put into a crevice. The two islands were connected by a spit 
from which rose a tower-like rock eighty-seven feet high. Barnacles 
on its side showed that it had been recently elevated. 

A week later Lieutenant M. Stoney of the United States Navy spent 
several days in the vicinity taking soundings and making observations. 
He recorded many earthquake shocks, as well as rumbling sounds and 
a roar like distant cannon. The summit was hidden by masses of black 
and whitish smoke and the sea seemed to be boiling. 

In 1885 Captain Healy of the Corwin reported that the summit from 



A MOUNTAIN OF FIRE. 227 

the north, end was enveloped in a bright sulphurous light which shone 
out against the sky and made a wonderfully impressive spectacle. 

Prof. C. Hart Merriam saw it in 1891 from the Albatross. He 
says : — 

" The night was densely foggy, as usual in Bering Sea in summer, 
and the early morning brought no change. The ship was feeling her 
way cautiously with no land in sight, when suddenly, about seven 
o'clock, the fog lifted and we saw, directly ahead and hardly a mile 
away, the bold front of the new volcano. We felt a thrill of excitement, 
as the precipitous cliffs of the northern end broke through the fog, fol- 
lowed by a fierce rush of escaping steam, whose roar, when the engines 
stopped, drowned all other noises, not excepting the cries of the myriads 
of seabirds which swarmed about the rocks like bees about a hive." 
The steamship ran agroimd on a reef which rose precipitately out of 
twenty fathoms of water, but backing off successfully anchored in the 
bay on the east side. Prof. Merriam thought the island did not in any 
way suggest a volcano, there being no cone and no true crater. But 
there were cracks and crannies and great fissures from which sulphur- 
ous steam was issuing with a deafening roar. In 1895, the island had 
decreased in height, its top had become greatly flattened and the spit 
connecting the two had disappeared. This rock, whose history has been 
known for one hundred and twenty years since it was first described 
in 1768 as a huge rock, fell in 1888 or 1889 and in 1890 its site was 
marked by a cluster of small islands or shoals. 

The changes that take place at Bogoslof are so bewildering that it 
is safe to say no two visitors ever see it alike. By the end of the last 
century the island had so cooled that animal life was again abundant 
there. The cliffs were filled with the black-headed, white-bellied murres 
laying their eggs in every cranny. Professor C. Hart Merriam gives an 
animated description of the visit which he and some of his crew made 
to the eastern spit in July, 1899. A large number of sea-lions had 
congregated there. As the boat drew near the shore they grew restless 
and alarmed. The cows took to the water ; the bulls roared and moved 



228 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

down to the beach. Several big yellow bulls, " big as oxen and much 
longer " came toward the boat, bellowing fearfully. Others stood and 
roared, surging their huge heads. " Most of the young, accompanied 
by more than one hundred cows and as many bulls, took refuge in the 
pond near the shore. They were now thoroughly frightened and rushed 
through the shallow i^ool in wild confusion, making the water surge and 
boil and throwing the spray high in the air. Finally, as if by concerted , 
action, all of the old sea-lions made a break for the far side of the pond 
and stampeded for the sea, where another absorbing scene was being 
enacted. 

" Dozens of adults, apparently cows and middle aged males, were 
sporting like porpoises in the breakers, moving side by side in schools 
of six or eight, and shooting comjoletely out of the water. These small 
squads behaved like well-drilled soldiers, keeping abreast, breaking 
water simultaneously, making their flying leap in the air side by side, 
and taking the next water together. This they repeated again and 
again, evidently finding it great sport. It was a marvellous sight and 
one to be long remembered." 

In 1907 the two peaks had become four and in August a violent earth- 
quake was followed by an eruption which was so violent that ashes fell 
as far north as Nome, and covered the decks of passing vessels to the 
depth of several inches. The whaler Herman was passing the Bogoslof 
Islands on September first and the captain and crew saw the third peak 
disappear before their very eyes, while vast columns of steam ascended 
miles into the air and the water boiled like a tea-kettle. Earthquake 
shocks were felt as far as Sitka and new rocks came to the surface all 
along the Aleutian coast. 

This year very great changes were reported; the water around the 
islands was so hot as to be imbearable. The rise and transformation 
of these volcanic islands is thought to throw a bright light on the for- 
mation of the whole Aleutian group of islands and mountains. They 
are evidently all volcanic and have been thrown up within recent geo- 
logic periods. Certainly nothing since the eruption of Krakatoa and 



A MOUNTAIN OF FIRE. 229 

the destruction of Pelee has been more instructive as regards the build- 
ing of the world than the birth of Bogoslof and Grrewingk. Beyond 
Umnak the Aleutian Islands in three groups — the Andreanof, the Is- 
lands of the Four Mountains, and the Rat Islands — still stretch out 
into the Northern Pacific. The very last in the group is called Attn. 
Here, and at Atka, largest of the Andreanof group, are made the bas- 
kets most prized by connoisseurs. Attu was discovered in 1745 by a 
reckless sea-otter huntsman, Mikhail Novidskof, who, in a small open 
boat, made his way across those dangerous seas from the next Kam- 
chatkan group. The next step was the longest — the wide passage 
from the Blizhni or Near Islands of which Attu is the largest across 
to the Eat Islands. From there the course eastward was compara- 
tively simple, one island being easily visible from the other. 

In those early days it was estimated that the Aleutian Islands had 
a population of perhaps thirty thousand. At the beginning of this 
century it is regarded as doubtful if there are fifteen hundred all told. 
In 1865 there were known to be in the eighteen hundred miles between 
Unalaska and Attu only three small native settlements aggregating 
less than five hundred natives with six or seven white men. As the 
Kuro Siwo, called the Black Current, because it is darker than the ocean 
through which it flows, reaches these groups of islands it greatly modi- 
fies the climate. Part of it turns to the eastward and carries with 
it the warm moist atmosphere which makes the climate of Alaska so 
foggy and favorable to green vegetation, at the same time condens- 
ing on the mountains forms the tremendous snowfall so favorable for 
the growth of glaciers; the other part passes northward into the 
Bering Sea, often carrying with it large icebergs. The average winter 
climate of the Aleutian Islands, though it corresponds to the latitude 
of Labrador, is above freezing. For the six colder months, from Oc- 
tober to March, the mean temperature at Unalaska is slightly above 
thirty-four. On the other hand the July temperature at the same place 
averages only fifty. It is quite within the bounds of possibility that 
in the days to come the former haunts of this peaceable, patient race 



230 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

will be again populous, that the thousands of miles of coast, so free 
from ice-blockade, may be lined with prosperous cities and towns, and 
that a new civilization may be built up, conditioned by the soft atmos- 
phere of the misty Aleutian chain. 

Mr. N. H. Castle who has lived in Alaska for many years has this 
to say of its climate : — 

" With the lengthening of the days, the sun's visible journey be- 
comes longer and longer until it reaches its maximum; the winter's 
snow melts fast before its ever and rapidly increasing intensity. The 
willows, tentatively, thrust forth delicate foliage. Clear water appears 
in the streams between the disrupted surfaces of the ice and rivulets 
of melted snow add their quota toward its ultimate effacement. Life 
and motion seem to aflfect even inanimate bodies. Around the bends 
of the larger watercourses, slowly, almost majestically, turning, twist- 
ing, upheaving, rending, grinding one upon the other, floe after floe, 
floe over floe, floe under floe, covering the entire width from bank to 
bank, the masses. above meet the masses below, the irresistible impact 
of millions of tons carries everything before it to the open sea. Per- 
haps the ice gorges in the river; the tremendous weight meets a for- 
midable but temporary obstruction and surge follows surge, heaping 
up a seemingly impenetrable wall ; huge blocks are tossed far up on 
the shore, discolored masses rent from the river's bed mingle with the 
clear ice that has suffered no contamination with earth, the water backs 
behind the surging, unquiet barrier and overruns its ordinary limits, 
until, bursting with a roar, the magnificent array again proceeds upon 
its course with its toll of uprooted trees and crumbled banks. 

" Such is the break-up, the gi-eat spectacular feature of the North- 
land. Yet season after season the ice may melt where it forms, or pass 
quietly away in small floes and disappoint the expectant sightseer by 
its lack of ostentatious display. Soon the only snow visible will be the 
scattered patches upon the hillsides and these may remain until the 
intervening spaces are filled by a fresh downfall. The stretches of 
tundra are dotted with miniature lakes and in places have the appear- 



A MOUNTAIN OF FIRE. 233 

ance of carpets of graduated shades of green, interspersed with blotches 
of purple, to the delight of the impressionist. 

" Then the vegetation seems to spring up before one's very eyes, 
as if it must do its utmost in its short season of freedom after long 
imprisonment. Grasses appear spontaneously; snapdragons, the wild 
rose, colimibines, buttercups, larkspur, violets blue and violets yellow, 
forget-me-nots, bluebells, marigolds and hundreds of other varieties 
of wild flowers mature in tropical luxuriance. Wild oats and barley 
give abundant promise of the day to come when we of the North shall 
raise our own cereals. Berries in profusion cover the ground. The 
deciduous trees assume a brilliant foliage and the sombre tints of the 
evergreens are tipped with brighter shades. Geese and crane, wild 
ducks and swans, snipe and plover, in countless thousands return from 
their winter wanderings and other feathered harbingers of spring glad- 
den the eye and ear, and themselves apparently rejoice to return to 
their chosen summer resort. 

"As to heat, clear and foggy days, wind and other elemental char- 
acteristics, the Alaskan summers vary largely. In Jime, July and 
August the thermometer ranges between one hundred and the forties. 
The precipitation varies from year to year ; sometimes the rain falling 
in cloudbursts, raising the creeks, destroying dams and works and in- 
flicting great damage, while in other seasons light rains may maintain 
a fair average of water for mining purposes; again, dry years may 
disappoint the miner no less than the agriculturist in other climes." 



CHAPTER XXII. 

OLTR IMPERIAL DOMAIN. 

THE Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition which was held at Seattle 
during the summer of 1909 undoubtedly opened the eyes of 
thousands of people to the immense importance of our far north- 
western territory so long neglected and abused. General Greely calls 
attention to the fact that as lately as 1905 a foot note to an article in 
a prominent magazine stated that the vast region of Alaska " is in- 
habited by a few savages and is not likely ever to support a population 
enough to make its government a matter of practical consequence." 

This utterly ridiculous statement apparently was allowed to pass un- 
protested. The ever-increasing tide of smnmer travel along the north- 
western coast where as Mr. John Burroughs says, " day after day a 
panorama unrolls before us with features that might have been gath- 
ered from the Highlands of the Hudson, from Lake George, from the 
Thousand Islands, the Saguenay, or the Eangeley Lakes in Maine, with 
the addition of towering snow-capped mountains thrown in for a back- 
ground," alone brings millions of dollars of traffic to the steamboat 
companies and the Alaskan towns. The compound interest on the cost 
of Alaska for twenty-five years was estimated by a treasury agent as 
twenty-three million seven hundred and one thousand seven hundred 
and ninety-two dollars. If to this be added the expense of the Army 
and Nav-y Department the total cost he reckoned as more than forty- 
three millions, and he advised abandoning the territory. General Greely 
prints an instructive table showing the aggregate value of furs, fish- 
eries and minerals between 1868 and 1908. The totals amounted to 
three hundred and twenty-seven million six hundred and fifty-one thou- 
sand one hundred and ninety-six dollars. Had not the selfish exploi- 



OUR IMPERIAL DOMAIN. 235 

tation of the fur-bearing animals resulted in such ruin to this industry 
the amount would have been far greater. General G-reely estimates 
that the possible gold output of the Seward Peninsula will reach a 
value of three hundred millions, of the Tanana water-shed a hundred 
millions, and other fields as yet untouched and unexplored will bring 
the mining districts up to a value of five hundred millions, while the 
coal-tonnage of the territory is estimated at fifteen thousand millions of 
short tons. And besides this there are possibilities of petroleum, lead, 
gyijsum, marble, iron, quicksilver, graphite, and hosts of other natural 
products as yet scarcely touched by the prospector. Then there are the 
actual values of eleven incorporated cities, amounting to fifteen or 
twenty millions more. Railways, telegraphs and hydraulic ditches have 
cost up into the millions and the imports and exports represent also 
almost fabulous sums. When the mineral resources begin to dwindle 
probably Alaska will go through the same experience as did California : 
agriculture will be found to outweigh her gold production a score of 
times. 

But even if these roseate visions of future wealth from the soil and 
the earth be not realized, Alaska is going to be more and more the 
playground of the world. Nowhere else is there such a voyage possible 
as from Seattle to Skaguay. It was made in the summer of 1909 by 
two professors and a student in a twenty-four foot naphtha laimch 
xmcovered. For two thousand miles, nearly all the way sheltered be- 
hind beautiful wooded islands and with marvellous vistas of beauty 
and magnificence unrolling before them they made their way into this 
region of enchantment. 

As yet Alaska is practically an unknown country. Our imaginary 
voyage has only skimmed the edge as it were. At the present time 
the United States and Canada are engaged in the foolish and unfor- 
tunate business of marking an imaginary boundary between Alaska and 
the Dominion. As there is no material division between these two 
countries, as there is free trade between Maine and California, so there 
should always be free trade between the United States and its northern 



236 OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN. 

neighbor. What is to the interest and advantage of the one should 
be to the interest and advantage of the other. A good proof of this 
is given by Dr. J. H. Moore, chairman of the meeting of the Arctic 
Brotherhood in July, 1909, when a beautiful building was presented 
to the University at Seattle. The speaker, after giving a humorous 
account of the accidental formation of the Society in 1897, on a ship 
bound north, — a society which now numbers more than seven thou- 
sand members — said : — 

" Our banner is a story in itself. "We had all Americans for mem- 
bers at first, but soon we began to take in Canadians. We were all for 
having the American flag in the banner, but then, because of the Cana- 
dian members, we thought it only fair to have the Union Jack in also. 
Both flags are combined in the banner. 

" All that time there was considerable friction over the boundary 
line. This dispute suggested the motto on our banner, ' No boundary 
line here.' " 

As it is, however, a gallant company of skilled men are at the present 
time engaged in marking a boundary line twelve hundred miles long. 
First there are sis hundred miles from the Portland Canal up the coast 
to Mt. St. Elias and then six hundred miles from there north to the 
Arctic Ocean. Mr. Thomas Eiggs, Jr., the chief of this part of the 
United States Alaskan Boundary Survey, says : — 

" All the land lying along the boundary must be mapped on an accu- 
rate scale and a strip of topography four miles wide must be run the 
entire length of the one hundred and forty-first meridian; peaks which 
cannot be climbed, or rather which would take too long and would be 
too expensive to scale, must be determined geodetically ; vistas twenty 
feet in width must be cut through the timbered valleys; and monu- 
ments must be set up on the routes of travel and wherever a possible 
need for them may occur. ' ' 

The labor thus involved is almost unimaginable. Bivers of icy water 
have to be crossed and moimted, vast glaciers have to be conquered, 
hea\^ instruments have to be carried, swamps and unbroken wilder- 



OUR IMPERIAL DOMAIN. 237 

nesses swarming with bloodthirsty mosquitoes have to be penetrated, 
pro\'isions have to be looked after. During one single season the two 
parties located main points on the boundary for eighty-five miles, com- 
pleted seventy-seven miles of triangulation, a topographical belt sixty- 
five miles long, cut forty miles of vista, ran two hundred and fifty miles 
of levels and established seventeen monuments of aluminum bronze, 
each five feet high and set in a concrete base weighing three quarters 
of a ton. 

While this is going on along the inward boundary the Coast Survey 
has been awakened to the need of surveying the coast. Owing to its 
sinuosities, that signifies making careful maps of a coast line estimated 
at twenty-six thousand miles. The season is short, lasting only from 
May to October, and during this time there are always a great many 
annoying interruptions, the storms that suddenly come up, and the 
fogs that are so prevalent on the northwest coast. 

As yet the charting of the bays and inlets is very imperfectly done ; 
there is a great lack of suitable lighthouses and buoys ; ships that nav- 
igate those waters run the risk of striking hidden rocks, rocks too that 
may have been recently thrown up by some subterranean convulsion. 
But the time is coming when this great and necessary work will be 
completed and the channels and bays from Seattle to Point Barrow will 
be as perfectly known as those of the Atlantic coast. 

Each year a larger number will learn about this magical territory; 
each year new bands of tourists will seek its marvellous panorama of 
glittering mountains and its rivers of flexile ice. No one who ever goes 
to Alaska fails to be impressed with the majesty of nature there dis- 
played, and to rejoice that fifty years ago there were a few statesmen 
far-sighted enough to see the possibilities of that distant boreal land. 
All honor to Seward and Sumner and the rest of the devoted congress- 
men who put that splendid measure through in spite of the opposition 
of purblind, narrow-minded Ignorance ! 

THE END. 



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